By Ken Wagner
February 28, 2009

The season opening 10 day USAC National & CRA traveling experience went as expected, and it didn’t. After two dry mid-west type slick tracks on the road in Phoenix and Las Vegas, the home track Perris clay didn’t give up a third win to the National competitors that came to sweep the year off in their favor. No, even though the midget feature tweaked the ½ mile surface to the breaking point, and even though the black slick pattern was peeking thru, it wasn’t a slam dunk for the visitors. The track provided an almost dominating top 10 for the invaders, yet one man stood tall above all for the home folks. Super Rickie Gaunt went right to the front from his 5th place starting spot and held off a determined Brad Sweet, and a gaggle of other slick track fun seekers, for the last 25 laps of the 30 lap Main Event. One for our side, finally!

Several picture groups are coming. the first is the Kittle Motorsports visit to Wagsland, Click here to see Mrs Wags and Click here to see mine. Then My Perris pics Click here to see them and last, some pics taken by buddy DJ Everett who came from North Carolina for the weekend. Click here to see.

Driving Nadine Gardner’s black # 16 Sled Chassied Gardner Motorsports racer (AKA "a girl's car"), Rickie was never better. He found the fastest way around the oval and just motored in his groove until the checkers fell as those behind him, who would have thought he was an easy mark like the CRA has been for two races on slick tracks, were left behind for the first time this year. He lost the lead briefly to Sweet on a slide job, but reacted quickly and took it back. Super Rickie was about as excited as he has ever been in his post race interview as he made some “in your face” statements that were emotional and ended the double point races at the start of the short season schedule. Rickie drove hard and answered every challenge from the youngster that was looking to fatten up his stats at Perris Auto Speedway. Hard charger was Jesse Hockett as he made his typical slide job moves from 19th up to 6th with particularly tough battles with Dave Darland and Damion Gardner who both said “oh no you don’t” with their own moves!

The feature started with Dustin Morgan jumping to the lead from the outside of the front row. He stayed on the point until the black Sled slipped under him on lap six. There were plenty of would be challengers as the race moved along, but Brad Sweet came from 7th to be the primary agitator as the slickening track was pretty tricky for most. Brad made a dozen runs at the winner coming around turn two, often pulling up near even with Rickie, but the preferred high grove was faster and Rickie pulled away down the back stretch every time. It was Rickie’s 22nd lifetime So Cal win and put him in a tie with gentleman John Redican at 17th on the all time list.

The night was intended to be early with a 6:50 start, yet nearly an hour of track prep before the CRA heats to cut down the dust, and the two complete shows caused a late night as the main event ended around midnight. Wow, the approaching bewitching hour sent plenty home early and probably the light breeze didn’t help. The pits opened at noon and there were so many cars, the pit area inside the racetrack was packed and some had to pit outside in the pit parking area, with even an overflow out on a paved area. The cars out of the track had an extra burden of getting their car and all related needed stuff into the track at the right time to race. Nic Faas, Garrett Hansen and Mike Spencer were several who had the added problem.

Mike Spencer gets the iron man driver of the week after qualifying 34th. He didn’t make the seeded 32 into the heats, so ran 28 laps in three races just to get into the mainwithout a provisional. He started with a 6 lap win in the 2nd of two C mains. Next, he lined up in the back row of his heat where he was only able to get up to 7th. On to the Semi he went and started in the back and rolled up to 7th with a lap to go behind the already legendary Kevin Swindell who did his best to intimidate him. Mike just went by him as Kevin did a 360 before the checkered flag, ending his night. It was a very masterful charge, but he couldn’t do it again in the main. Mike started the feature in 22nd and seemingly toiled in place on his way to 17th before the nightmare ended for the little red sucker.

The bad news took in some of the unlucky teams like normal. David Cardey had a pretty good race car, but somehow got on his head when someone took his front end out with a bump. He restarted at the back, but never mounted a charge, finishing 16th. Blake Miller was running a strong third until that red flag stop. When the race restarted, he went to the back to line up and stayed there, considerably slower that before, finishing 18th. Tyler Brown had no luck either after a heat race wheel toss and then ended up 23rd in the big one. Darren Hagen hit the wall and then with no steering slowly headed around turn three down to the bottom of the track, instead of stopping. This move took out Danny Sheridan who was doing well in about 7th at the time. Danny couldn't avoid him and did a motorcycle jump like approach after encountering the wounded duck. Cory Kruseman ended up on the hook after an incident that I didn’t see.

Considering the large turnout of cars, the track held up pretty good. The midget feature looked like it belonged to Tracy Hines after he zoomed to the front midway thru the race. If you were watching Darren Hagen you might have thought he had something for the leader. As the race wound down, it turned out he did. Darren had to take a provisional just to start the main, but methodically moved forward until he had Hines in his sights. He made one slide job that Tracy returned the favor on reclaiming the lead, but a second slider put the # 3 car in the lead to stay. Pretty good racing for the songbird noisy little cars.

With 50 cars running this week, there were almost 100 racing laps on the track, and that was just the sprints. Plenty of action in the heats as everyone wanted to make the main for this one. I don’t know what it paid for this National event, but the National points were obviously also the goals for the travelers. Anyone who thought our guys didn’t compete on this one, except for winner Super Rickie, keep in mind the local boys are weekend hobby racers and the visitors race for the money, it’s their job. Also, they race several times a week and hone their expertise on the slick track so they can be successful. Someone told me slick tracks are why the wings arrived, when track prep was so poor, the wings made running the slick tracks easier with the extra horsepower to the ground routines. Be proud of our boys, they ran hard every race and did just fine.

SLICK TRACK SLAPSTICK, that should tell you how I liked Las Vegas slick track city. You knew I had to eventually get to it! No, I did not see the main event at my nearby track in Las Vegas because I saw the midget main on a totally black and sick track and decided I knew what was about to happen, so I headed to the pits to visit with a few that didn’t get to watch the main. I didn’t miss a thing in my mind, but many fans thought it was just fine. Sure I know they all raced hard, but it is just not to my liking and you know I don’t ike pavement races either. The track was sooooooo baaaaad, I can’t believe it! It was so bad, only the most experienced slick trackers could move on it. It was so bad our boys were just spinning their wheels, never to get a fair shot. It was not unexpected, but after last year’s perfectly great track the night Blake Miller came from the 8th row to win, I know than can prepare better, but chose not to, you fill in the blank. Cole Whitt was the fastest of the trackers and thus earned the win. He is a great race car driver and my congratulations to him!

The first five racers who missed the feature from the semi this race were Jimmy Crawford, Nic Faas, Jordan Hermansader, RJ Johnson and Alan Ballard. Their car owner’s all received the $75 promised from my anonymous doner, whom we will call Mr Goodbucks from now on, because who knows, he may do it again! He just wants to help the guys who miss the feature get something and hopes that will encourage them to come back again. It might pay the $25 entry fee and the radio rental, I don’t know, but it all helps and thanks Mr Goodbucks! He challenges anyone else to get involved with his idea, or pick somewhere else you would like to put your extra money for the racers using me as a conduit, or take the money to the pits and hand it to them personally, or join in the old time Wagsbucks collections that I have reinstated, for lack of a better way to explain. The racers will all appreciate it.

I began collecting Wagsbucks in 1989, and up until about three years ago when I worked with the “new” USAC up in the booth. That job effectively stopped Wagsbucks because I was no longer there greeting the fans and carrying my clipboard around to collect the money that always went to a low buck car owner at the end of each race. With the onslaught, and I mean onslaught, of the economy madness we are experiencing, there are fewer places for many teams to get the money needed to finance their race team. Although the amounts I collected over the year varied from race to race, every award to every racer was appreciated and put to good use. The original Wagsbucks goal was for me and a few friends to collect enough to buy a racer a tire. My few friends back then has grown over the years as my many more friends of today believe in helping the little guys. When you add up $1, $5, $10, $20 or more from the people who pass me cash and sign my clipboard, it is a tidy sum each time. So, I thought I should concentrate on helping the little guys regularly again, thus the return of the Wagsbucks.

In addition to the $375 from Mr Goodbucks we passed out this week, we collected $222 of Wagsbucks that went to Henry Clarke for his slow crash that produced a lot of damage on the # 41 car. Thank you to all who supported this old idea, Henry is very appreciative of the free cash you provided. Let’s hope we can continue to make this work when we return to Perris in a month. I will be out front when the spectator gates open each race and will wander the grandstand area from time to time looking for you. If you don’t find me in my Wagtimes gear and red & white polka dot hat out of the grandstands, and have a few bucks burning your pocket, come find me. I sit up at the top of section “C” on the turn one side of the grandstands and you can save me a few steps by coming to visit me up there when you are out roaming around, as I am not as spry as I once was.

There is no news on the Wagsdash at this point, but as my financial adviser told me recently, just have patience. Hopefully Ventura can remain the choice as the history of the chili feeds, the auctions and other fund raisers at the best little race track by the sea is tremendous. It would NOT be the same if it were a 360 only show, or run at another track, so it is going to take some doing to make it happen. We have been supporting “our” local 410 boys for 20 years and I can’t see changing that one goal. One way or another, we will have some kind of a Wagsdash where the annual goal is to put as much money in the hands of as many low buck racers as we can. That’s pretty simple, so help me out here.

We now have four weeks until the next race, so everyone should be rested up by then. I hope to do several things in the interim. I would like to see the NEW Ventura track Jim Naylor revamped and improved. I also would like to go to the Bakersfield March Meet at the Famosa Drag Strip North of Bakersfield on March 6 – 8. Also, I would like to get over this cold!

2/28/09 Perris FEATURE: (30 laps - With Starting Positions) 1. Rickie Gaunt (5th), 2. Brad Sweet (7th), 3. Tracy Hines (1st), 4. Jerry Coons Jr. (6th), 5. Damion Gardner (10th), 6. Jesse Hockett (19th), 7. Cole Whitt (14th), 8. Dave Darland (17th), 9. Jon Stanbrough (12th), 10. Levi Jones (15th), 11. Chad Boat (13th), 12. Josh Wise (20th), 13. Garrett Hansen (23rd), 14. Rip Williams (24th), 15. Greg Bragg (18th), 16. David Cardey (3rd), 17. Mike Spencer (22nd), 18. Blake Miller (4th), 19. Cory Kruseman (21st), 20. Dustin Morgan (2nd), 21. Darren Hagen (9th), 22. Danny Sheridan (11th), 23. Tyler Brown (8th), 24. Shane Hmiel (16th). NT.