By Ken Wagner
November 18, 2007

I had planned to go to my first Trophy Cup in years this past weekend, but you know about making plans. The 14th annual was a success as usual without me as I spent Friday and Saturday at home fighting off a bug with my sweetheart who was worse off than me. Also missing my usual spot in the Perris grandstands was tough, but it’s over and NEXT YEAR is about here.

The annual USAC/CRA banquet is upon us and those familiar capital letters are never more appropriate to the sprint car faithful. USAC masses the West Coast champions in a long laborious banquet each year instead of allowing the different divisions to relax and celebrate with their pears. It means the king of the world 410 sprint cars of CRA are just another group in the scheme of things. This eliminates some fans and racers from going to the banquet from the sprint car world, but it is the way it is and I’ll be there to celebrate the Alexander/Tony Jones success for this season.

The 2007 CRA Champion is TONY JONES driving the Mark Alexander owned Silver Bullet that is sponsored by many, many, many people who help make it happen. La Villa Mexican Restaurant, Alexander Trucking, Ferreira Dairy, Communications Innovations, Larry Murakami Contracting, Garnica Trucking, SCRAfan.com, Big Jon and Scotty, Ray’s Trucking, Zanabuku Sports Lounge and Dougs Auto Body make up the important list that kept this team going this season. Alas, for next season the champions will need even more help to maintain, or will be running a limited schedule.

This championship is the story of the little silver bullet who could. The Alexander team fought big odds against all comers and won. They are not the most sponsored in dollars, they are not a “factory” team like some of the National racers, they are not even one of the many who have big high dollar rigs, they were not even more than a sentimental favorite when the year began, and yet, they succeeded in the biggest way as underdogs in CRA.

They remind this old wag of a drag racing team from my youth in the 60’s. The team was known as the Surfers. This team of Skinner, Jobe and Sorokin, with Mike Sorokin driving the Top Fuel Dragster, had moderate success for years, and did it on a limited budget. They were dreaded when they towed on to race by everyone who might have to race them. The car was kept in a lean to next to the house and taken to the races on a flat open trailer behind a 55 Chevy. They didn’t have a big budget or the high dollar equipment, but beat all the hot dogs at the Fuel and Gas Championships in Bakersfield one year. On that day, they beat a strong 64 car field and came in as overwhelming underdogs! It wasn’t their only success on the drag strips, but perhaps the most surprising in those early years before the cookie cutter chassis and engine combinations that were the forerunners of today’s dragsters. The Alexander team definitely reminds me of the Surfers in the way they took what they had, borrowed plenty, and went out to do the job each race, one race at a time.

Tony “The” Cowboy” Jones has had some real ups and downs in his 13 year career. He started driving on the West Coast in Larry Henry’s # 24 white sprinter that was similar to the one his dad, Bubby Jones and Larry campaigned when the legendary "Ol' Bub" started his career back in the day. He received Wagsbucks like many beginners, but moved up quickly. When he went on to drive the red # 48 of Gene Cowherd to an Oval Nationals win in 2000, stealing it from Mike Kirby on a last lap "Cowboy" move with his spurs on, it was just the beginning of his own legendary status. Tony has won nearly every big race on the West Coast, including the Glenn Howard Trophy Dash this past weekend, plus the Kindoll Classic, the Sokola Classic, the one time Wagtimes Big Dog Dash and yes, many more. He has 29 West Coast victories making him 16th on the long list of over 200 winning drivers in CRA history. That’s impressive for the part time driver who juggles his job and his family life along with his Saturday night love of racing.

Generally speaking, to me champions are a result of a group of racers in tune to each other who work for the common goal together. Cory Kruseman, Mike Nigh and Harlan Willis were one of “those” together teams who won with what looked like the greatest of ease. It takes team charisma, the right moves, good equipment, a great driver and some luck along the way. All winners get some luck here and there and Tony’s team had their share this season. But, it’s not about luck at all; it’s about drive, stamina, determination, a deep desire and the will to succeed. They have all that, and for the 2007 season they were the best in an organization that featured many superstar drivers. Congratulations to Tony and his own team of super stars!

As for celebrating, USAC showed it’s normal attitude in Phoenix when they once again chose to only celebrate their national champion, even though Tony had clinched his that night. It’s always about the “national” deal, as they didn’t want anything taken away from their champion. While Tony was having a beer in the pits, Levi Jones was getting a champagne spray in front of the Manzy crowd. Don’t take a thing away from Levi, he deserved the celebration for a year long accomplishment, but so did Tony. Tony got to enjoy the home crowd, but it was a week too late and not the same.

It’s just normal, but we get no respect from the Indiana corporate as their satellite from the West Coast. They must have enjoyed their pro racers coming west to beat our amateurs for the year ending races. It reminds me of the way Olympic basketball was before we put our NBA pro’s on the team; it was so different back in those days. Let’s just say if our drivers went to Indiana and raced two or three nights a week on tracks of all sizes and preparation, in high dollar sprinters, we would be dominating, too! No hard feelings here, because most of the top drivers are not from Indiana anyway, they come from all over. Dave Darland and Levi Jones are the only drivers from the Indiana area in the top ten in points and obviously they are elite in the sprint car world. The rest come from Tennessee, Missouri, California, Arizona, and Oklahoma. Actually, you have to look at the big picture and understand what is happening to get the point. Locals in So Cal were sad our boys didn’t dominate on our home tracks, but I like our type of racing just fine thank you, because they put on great shows on well prepared tracks. And most importantly, it rarely turns into what Las Vegas gave us last month, a blue smoke ballet that was hard to watch.

It is absolutely great that the big dollar teams from Indiana are doing well for the mostly young drivers who are working their way up to NASCAR if they can make it, but unlimited budgets are not for our guys. Having Tony Stewart and Kasey Kahne “giving back” to where they came from is awesome, but we don’t have the pipeline on the coast, so get over it. Oh, we have a few fat checkbooks locally in So Cal, but for the most part, our teams have to sell themselves hard just to keep racing every week. It was great having all the heroes in one spot again, and I can’t wait until next year’s version, but first let’s get into the 2008 season and enjoy what we have.

We have some of the most talented drivers in the land and continue to bring along more each year and feed both the local scene and beyond. My hats off to all the local CRA racers and the weekly show they provided us in 2007. Mike Spencer’s improvement is obvious as are many others. Mike plus Danny Sheridan, Blake Miller, David Cardey, R J Johnson, Tyler Brown, Michael Trimble and Garrett Hansen are just a few of the stars of tomorrow and where our future will be in the coming years. Be proud, we still are the greatest show on dirt and I wouldn’t have it any other way. It was a great season and I can’t wait for next year. Let’s all get to the banquet and celebrate our Champion and his competitors.

Alas, the rising cost of sprint car racing might do to us what happened in drag racing. In the old days, when I was young in the 60’s and early 70’s, there were dozens of drag strips with hundreds of Top Fueler’s and Funny Cars running in the southland several nights each week, so you had many opportunities to go watch or race yourself. At the same time, large numbers of drag strip’s and cars around the country were running weekly as well. In those days they ran anything they could build in their backyard with parts and motors from the junkyard. In time they slowly progressed to where the new engine builders and chassis creators started making a change with more reliable equipment, causing the racers to step it up and stay out of the junk yards for their parts, just like today’s sprint car racers!

Many were very successful with that build your own progress until ……… Wally Parks and NHRA happened and organized the drag racing world. The cost of drag racing went up drastically over time, until today there is only a handful of cars for the latest Pro classes of Top Fuel, funny Car and Pro Stock. These pro cars are highly sponsored running on corporate tracks around the country for 24 events on about 20 different tracks a year. Each pass by the fueler’s cost reportedly upwards of $12,000 and more, so the old cost of Nitro and a few junkyard parts is long gone and out of most of today's budgets, thus ET bracket racing is good for those who have the need for speed on a drag strip. Sure today's cars are faster, louder and more famous now, but is it a better show? What happened to all the competitive racers of the 60's ad 70's as the cost escalated and they disappeared? Did they run ET brackets instead, or just quit? You answer that because I don’t want that for sprint cars, and I see a parallel for our sport here. The nostalgia drags are more fun to me with the front motor cars and smoky runs. The Cacklefest experience is something to see and not hear about.

Just think about the future of 410’s in California from what we saw this season with car counts going down and less venues to run 410’s as the 360’s ramped it up at most of the fairground tracks around the state. There were once hundreds of 410 sprint cars in both North and Southern California running on many tracks each week. Now we have 50 or so competing in So Cal and who knows up north in the old NARC territory how many are left to run the Golden State series? So be careful what you wish for! We need someone with vision, the knowledge to grow our sport and the wisdom to make it still our sprint car racing in the future, not let it turn into a high dollar circus that will eliminate the creative racers that have built the CRA to what we remember as the best racing in the land.

OK, I’m done for now. See ya at the banquet, but not at the Turkey Night parking lot race, and yes to the Chili Bowl in January. For now my third love, after my loving wife and sprint car racing, B-ball has started again and I won’t come up for air until the racing season opens in February, except for a few playoff games that might cause me to miss some dirt action. Have a great Thanksgiving and remember what it means to be an American besides the turkey feed, it is still our America, so let’s celebrate our freedom.

FEATURE: (40 laps) 1. Cory Kruseman, 2. Mike Spencer, 3. Damion Gardner, 4. R. J. Johnson, 5. Chris Windom, 6. Tony Jones, 7. Levi Jones, 8. Josh Ford, 9. Darren Hagen, 10. Rickie Gaunt, 11. Jon Stanbrough, 12. Blake Miller, 13. Cole Whitt, 14. Jimmy Crawford, 15. David Cardey, 16. Eric Severson, 17. Luis Espinosa, 18. Rip Williams, 19. Danny Sheridan, 20. Alex Schutte, 21. Alan Ballard, 22. Michael Trimble, 23. Brady Bacon-NT

FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Laps 1-17 Kruseman, Laps 18-39 Spencer, Lap 40 Kruseman.

FINAL LUCAS OIL USAC/CRA SPRINT CAR POINT STANDINGS: 1-2007 Champion Tony Jones-2,001; 2- Mike Spencer-1,941; 3-Danny Sheridan-1,758; 4-Rickie Gaunt-1,695; 5-Scotty Weir-1,570; 4-Rip Williams-1,456; 7-David Cardey-1,284; 8-Cory Kruseman-1,273; 9-Blake Miller-1,112; 10-Josh Ford-1,030.