November 15, 2010

By Ken Wagner

With two Kaeding brothers in the house Bud showed his brother Tim how to do it in a traditional sprint car. Bud took over the lead after early leader Bryan Clauson was taken out by an errant slide job while leading, and cruised on to another CRA victory in the 2nd coming of the rejuvenated Pacific Coast Open. Bud was fast on the racy track and even the National sprint car champion Levi Jones couldn’t catch him. Most of Bud’s brilliance has been wingless style while his brother’s expertise is in the wing style and most say he is one of the very best with the hardware on top.

For my pics 11/13/10 Click here. For Steve Lafond's work click here. For Doug Allen's work Click here.

I didn’t see the crash for the lead, but will assume it was the pursuer’s mistake that took them both out, as the nearby crowd was howling at Damion Gardner for his part of the incident. The ending looked bad as Clauson’s car was highly rearranged sans fuel cell. Damion’ went back to the pits on the hook with him still in the seat, hoping to restart, but he didn’t. Two other crashes got my attention and I only saw the end of them as well. It must have been so cold, I was watching for a heater to come by? Tim Kaeding did well in his heat as he won going away and was doing very well in the feature until I caught him flying down the front stretch, very high, and much like a spinning top out of control. The car was coming apart as he finally rolled to a stop. I heard he had help, but got out of the trash car and walked toward the pits where he was hustled into an ambulance and taken away for further checking. The third crash of note was Nic Faas who ran into the wall and I have no clue on this one either. After they cleaned up the mess and had the car moving off, Nic asked for a little Ambulance check out time and also went off to be checked out. Reports on both drivers are good as of Sunday. Others on the flip side were Jonathon Logan in qualifying, Wes Gutierrez in hi s heat and Geoff Ensign in the semi.

Although Bud is a Californian, the best of the regular CRA breed was Matt Mitchell who ran 5th with Mike Spencer 7th. Austin Williams ran a fine race, keeping 2nd place ahead of Levi until the bitter end. When Levi finally was able to make his pass on the young gun, he slipped by and tapped Austin’s front end, which probably caused the spiral back to 9th at the end for Austin. It wasn’t handling as well after the pass, but good job for the youngster.

Jon Stanbrough was quick time on the evening, setting a new track record, but that was about it for the winningest driver in the country this year. He missed the transfer in his heat and ran 2nd in the semi, but was the first car out of the main with an evil handling car. Danny Sheridan was looking to set the world on fire this race as he started 16th and was in 9th in three laps flying on the top of the high groove while most were on the bottom. After the first red flag stop, he was looking to again use the top groove to go forth, but a giant bike maneuver going into turn one, sent him crashing into the wall and done for the night after running away with his heat race.

There were only 8 CRA regulars that towed up out of 33 cars, but the end of the year budgets get most of the blame. Tony Jones, Rip Williams, Ronnie Gardner, David Cardey and Greg Bragg were all out with broken motors. Rickie Gaunt was another hero that didn’t make the short trip. There were several others expected, but like I say, it’s the end of the year and many are out of money!!!!

Although it was a great racetrack for the sprints, I was surprised the Midget main didn’t spice it up. The top three ran 30 laps in line with little more than a follow the leader pack, with the rest of the field doing likewise behind them. Very surprised! He who started first finished first, and so on.

Here’s a little commercial for those who like me want to have our CRA cars reproduced on die-cast models. For years I had Bob’s Dream World create the ones I have, some 50 or more, and then a few years ago he dropped off the world. Well he has resurfaced! I just received 4 models all done and I have more to order. keepngoal@sbcglobal.net is his e-mail. He gets $45 for non wing and $55 on the winged version. He will ship. He also has some decals and I’ll post those when I see them. FYI!

The event was interesting as the track looked good to me all night and the racing was entertaining. The crowd was OK for the 33 Sprints and 32 Midgets that put on the show. It was 48 degrees and chilly for us desert rats. Tulare is a great place for us to run, but we sure need more fans to travel. I saw the usual travelers, but not enough.

The CRA championship is done with Mike Spencer locking it up again for the third year in a row. He had a better statistical season than last year, but the key was his top finishes without many DNF’s. Mike was consistent and just rolled up the track each race going to the front. He had 5 wins, 9 fast times, 17 top 5 finishes and still has the master Bruce Bromme Jr turning the wrenches for the little red sucker. Good job to the Ron Chaffin owned team!

I am planning to go to Ventura this week, but we’ll see. Mrs Wags has some unexpected foot surgery coming up to fix a moving titanium piece. It will either be this week or the week of Thanksgiving. She is booking herself into the Chili Bowl this year, Her first visit in quite some time, so my Son will have more company than usual, but she won’t do any B-ball games if we go to any.

I would like to see a packed house for the Glenn Howard Memorial, the man did some amazing things for the racers. You should all be over the turkey festivities and the final race is always exciting. It will be at least 3 months before the opener next year, so plan on seeing me there.

11/13/10 FEATURE: (40 laps) 1. Bud Kaeding, 2. Levi Jones, 3. Tracy Hines, 4. Justin Grant, 5. Matt Mitchell, 6. Casey Shuman, 7. Mike Spencer, 8. Chris Windom, 9. Austin Williams, 10. Jerry Coons Jr., 11. Dave Darland, 12. Danny Faria Jr.13. Bobby East, 14. Richard VanderWeerd, 15. Jace VanderWeerd, 16. Henry Clarke, 17. Casey Riggs, 18. Cory Kruseman, 19. Nic Faas, 20. Tim Kaeding, 21. Danny Sheridan, 22. Bryan Clauson, 23. Damion Gardner, 24. Jon Stanbrough. NT

**Logan flipped during qualifying. Gutierrez flipped during the fourth heat. Ensign flipped during the semi. Clauson, Gardner, Sheridan and T.Kaeding flipped during the feature.

FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Laps 1-7 Clauson, Laps 8-30 B.Kaeding.

NEW AMSOIL USAC/CRA SPRINT CAR STANDINGS: 1-Spencer-1,402; 2-Sheridan-1,044; 3-Mitchell-963; 4-Kruseman-938; 5-Blake Miller-770; 6-A.Williams-641; 7-Greg Bragg-621; 8-Tony Jones-610; 9-David Cardey-602; 10-C.Williams-588.

FINAL USAC AMSOIL NATIONAL SPRINT CAR STANDINGS: 1-L.Jones-2,094; 2-Gardner-1,962; 3-Clauson-1,927; 4-Coons-1,744; 5-Hines-1,733; 6-Windom-1,707; 7-Darland-1,313; 8-Clarke-1,312; 9-Shane Hmiel-1,080; 10-Stanbrough-1,065.

FINAL USAC NATIONAL SPRINT CAR DIRT STANDINGS: 1-L.Jones-1,781; 2-Gardner-1,602; 3-Clauson-1,557; 4-Windom-1,451; 5-Coons-1,388; 6-Hines-1,373; 7-Darland-1,313; 8-Stanbrough-1,065; 9-Clarke-982; 10-Robret Ballou-796.

NEXT AMSOIL USAC/CRA SPRINT CAR RACE: November 27 – Perris (CA) Auto Speedway – “Glenn Howard Memorial”