Jeremy Sherman stuns home crowd with outstanding effort in 360 motored car.

The first two day event for the new USAC/CRA club went off without a hitch and two visiting USAC drivers won in two USAC/CRA based sprint cars in the 4th annual Sokola Classic run at Manzanita Raceway this past weekend. Dave Darland took Ben Lancaster’s # 14 Avenger to the winners circle in Friday night’s 20 lap main in a wire to wire win. Then Cory Kruseman battled Tony Jones early and later held off Jeremy Sherman at the end of the 40 lap main on Saturday. The weather was warm in the 90’s during the day, but very friendly t-shirt weather after dark.

Mrs Wags has finished Saturday click here.

With 32 cars registered for both nights, there was plenty of action for the big crowd that came out to see for themselves what is new in the sprint car world on the West Coast. No more Gasman, but the racing is just like normal, very good. Dave Darland arrived just in time Friday night, from nearby PIR where he was racing, to drive the Ben Lancaster owned, JE Pistons, Discount Tool Repair, Pick’s Motor’s, # 14 that has seen Bobby Graham and a few others in the seat. He went on to run away with the feature with a strong drive in the black Las Vegas based car. Behind him came Tracy Hines in the Mark Priestly team car to Troy Rutherford, both sponsored by Sander Engineering, Roy Miller Freight Lines and Bullet Chassis. Rickie Gaunt set fast time both nights with Friday’s 18.606 near the track record, and 2nd best all time mark at Manzy. He finished 3rd in the Smiley’s Crane Service, Zoriki Motorsports, Advanced Racing Engines, # 2A.

Cory Kruseman had a rough first night when his car came out of gear in qualifying and he started 20th in the main event to come up to 9th for a good move thru the pack from the back. Tony Jones got a promoter option pass to start 21st and finish 10th for a tie on best passing Friday. Jeremy Sherman Didn’t have his motor back from rebuild land, so ran his 360 both nights. Sounds like a waste of time? Not really as he came from 16th to 8th in the 20 lap prelim main and did even better the next night.

The Saturday winner came from the 2nd row as Brian Venard and Tony Jones led them off from the front row on the start. Brian went backwards as Cory went after Jones. The Cowboy had his spurs on and looked strong as he fought off numerous challenges from the Kruser for the first 17 laps before he got passed on the 18th lap and Cory set sail for his 63rd west coast 410 win of his career, and first USAC victory. He drove the Alexander Trucking, La Villa Restaurant, Agromin, Stinger Chassis, # 4 to the 40 lap win with ease from there. He will return from his Tony Stewart # 21 USAC ride on May 8th to run at Manzy again. He also plans to run the first USAC midget race at Ventura in April.

Jeremy Sherman gave the home folks something to be proud of as he took his high tech 360 motored # 21 from 16th to 2nd with some moves that he might have invented on the big fast Manzy half mile. He wound up the little motor and literally cruised up and around most of his bigger motored competitors, making it look like, well like the Sherminator always does here, he passed wherever he wanted and went to the front. He was the defending champion, and with a late race restart with two laps to go, you knew he would go all out to pass the Kruser for what would have been a very popular win. Cory, the smart racer with the faster car, ignored the challenge when Sherman dived into turn one attempting a gutsy pass, and drove away calmly like one would swat away a fly. It might have been different if the horsepower had been even, but a monster driving job by Sherman lit up the track and had them standing and cheering him on to the end with Cory’s fans doing likewise. One wouldn’t believe it if you hadn’t been there.

Mike Spencer had third all wrapped up until that last restart and got pinned on the backstretch as Tracy Hines and Rickie Gaunt freight trained right by him when he got behind another car that he couldn’t go around. He got 7th on the tough break after a terrific drive. Why wasn’t he the most improved driver last year after finishing 5th in points after only two years with the club?

Saturday had lots of excitement as the night unfolded. In hot laps, Darland banged the wall in turn four and it took the wrecker a while to find the map to get up thru the soupy cushion and near enough to haul him away. Plenty of work on the car to get ready for qualifying and his night didn’t improve much as he came in 15th in the main. Gary W Howard showed up Saturday night with his car owner, Jim Keene, and drove Ben’s home built 2nd chassis, but missed the main.

Three major crashes on the night were hard to watch, but nobody was hurt. In the first heat Mike Kirby was battling towards the front when his car jumped out of gear and Bud Kaeding driving Harlan Willis # 45, was so “on his butt” that he banged Kirby hard before going into a high flipping act that bent the wall in between turns three and four when he crashed into it pretty violently. Kirby’s mount was unfixable, but the Willis crew rebuilt the black car to head for the semi.

Kaeding was also the 2nd high flying act of the night, this time in the main event, when he nailed the first turn wall and literally lowered it about 5 feet as it “bent over” towards 35th Avenue. The car looked pretty bad, but Bud walked away after the spinning ride along the top of the short fence that barely kept him in the park. The last smasher was all Tony Jones when his car broke an axle, sending him into a nasty looking crash around turn three into four, stopping so quickly, it looked bad for a few moments. He climbed out and sat on the track before heading to the pits and later telling the crowd about his axle ride from out of some Magic Mountain type fun. His car maybe dead, but they will look it over this week and decide what to do.

Other good jobs put on this week included one by Josh Ford who is preparing to run USAC in Indiana this year after a rookie season with SCRA last year. He won his heat by passing Darland, Hines and Gardner and looked good doing it. He went on to finish 11th in the main. The Smiley team cars with Charles Davis Jr and Rickie Gaunt both looked good and fast in their shiny blue cars. Rickie was 3rd and 4th in the two nights and Charlie 14th and 7th. They will do very well as they already are battling in the Arizona 360’s very closely.

Damion Gardner is working hard getting used to his new Ron Chaffin ride. The John Boy Chassis is a little different than the last two years with Eagle and TCR the chariots he drove. He was 5th on Friday and then 9th after changing a flat tire on Saturday. He says he feels good and the team is working hard to make the change from the Gasman’s looser preferred set-ups compared to his tighter rocket like choice. Don’t worry about them, they will be rocketing in front soon.

The Venard Family sprinter did good this weekend to roll it on the trailer as Brian Venard started both mains on the pole and ran 11th and 12th against the tough field. The car escaped damage this weekend, but the tow vehicle didn’t. The motorhome that pulls the trailer down the road suffered a broken window parked out behind the track during Friday nights races. The didn’t notice it until glass started falling out on the dinning area side as they drove off to have a late dinner at the Big Apple where we also went. Most likely it was an errant rock from the track, but a problem that needs fixing regardless.

Our hats off to Sammy Bahr’s dedication to the memory of Mark & Gary Sokola as he collected about $7000 of extra money that went into the Sokola Classic purse. It went for lap money, a hard luck driver, a trophy dash winner and some other creative ways to get money to the racers like for finishing 7th and 11th. Imagine having that much extra each race for the drivers. Perhaps that is an idea that someone might work on?

Besides bad luck for the black # 45 and # 2 cars, others had their time in the barrel, but not so serious looking. Tony Elliott flew out to run the Nadine Kellar owned, Sled chassied, # 6 car crewed on by the Gardner Clan and was the hard luck driver of the weekend. On the first night they had a problem in hot laps that required Saturday morning maintenance, then after setting 2nd quick time on the final night, the 2nd qualifying lap created sour noises coming from the motor and he was done again with a busted piston and more. Jimmy Crawford had untold problems that kept him on the trailer both nights, getting not even a qualifying time or any fun in hot laps. Long trip for naught! Bob Ream Jr was fast on Friday with 3rd quick and 12th in the main with fuel pick-up problems. The fast orange racer never got going on Saturday as the popping never ended and Bob didn’t get to run the powerful Mopar racer. Next time, watch out!

The point leader coming in, Mike Kirby didn’t have much fun this trip. On Friday he lost a shock early in the night and fought a push condition in the feature, so bad he said he had to turn left to go around the corners. We all see the wheels cocked to the right when they back em in around the corners, so Mike had his hands full in the Crossno # 38 prime car as he came from 10th to 6th just hanging on. On Saturday, as I mentioned, he got run over by Kaeding and was done for the night. Glen’s 2nd car was driven by Levi Jones and he finished 15th and 10th for the two nights.

The SCRA schedule was tweaked a little recently. The addition of a July 3rd date at Prescott Valley will go against the annual Perris fireworks show. Then, April 24th was added to the Tulare schedule. Two NWWC tour dates have become TBA’s with Lawrenceburg and Godfrey dropping off that schedule. Check the SCRA web page for the latest news.

No other official SCRA news in my in-box this week as the opener nears, but we are about to find out how the wind blows very soon. Somewhat low car counts for the first three races are concerning both clubs and promoters, but some haven’t been out yet and others are really struggling for money and that’s a good reason not to rush back. Moving the April 3rd night date to the next day in the daylight should get more cars and fans I would guess, and probably the reason for the change. If the track has a lot of water in it, well a day race is a day race. They have a covered grandstand at the racy little track, so for the extra money, you can sit in the shade. In the old days, there were many day races but recently not very many. Things should begin to get clearer in the next few weeks as strong SCRA supporters say wait and see how many cars show up at Tulare. I am ready to see, but will have to get reports from others as I will be leaving Hanford early Sunday morning to make an afternoon flight out of town on business, so won’t have to take in the sunny day event.

J J Yeley won his first Copper World Midget race at PIR this past weekend and was one of the visitors at Manzy on Saturday night. I heard he beat a very fast Dave Steele, but I didn’t go to the pavement party during the warm day because of two strikes, it’s pavement and a day race! Lealand McSpadden, who with his wife Janet, was parked in the infield at PIR, raved about the midget race. Of course he was one of those “crazies” when he raced there, too! I really had a problem watching those twitchy midgets on that big track, thus my not bothering to go out there any more. It looked on TV today during the IRL race that the old Copper World crowd is not the same high volume as in the past, but you know how those camera’s lie! Maybe they should go back to the old format and date.

As for the Tempe Tornado, he looked great. He and Janet spent the night in the grandstands, then went to the pits to walk around and I got in a little visit with him. He looked good, but got cranky about the axle breaking on Tony’s car. He says more axles should be replaced sooner and he says it is obvious to know when. He is working four 12 hour days a week now and spends Fridays resting up for his weekend activities. That still include the trips to their Mexico hideaway where the racing through the sand dunes happens almost weekly. He was his usual gentleman with all the fans that besieged him as he moved thru the pits, man we miss him at the races. His son Jeff and wife Carrie are expecting their third child, a boy at last, so now Lealand can teach the next generation to race. Can you imagine another Tornado in Tempe?

It was a long drive over and back, to and from Manzy, but as usual there were so many highlights with racing and visiting with my friends, the warm weather wasn’t much of a factor. It will be hot in May, for those who return, so you have to maintain the right mental attitude about the heat. Terry didn’t get off until almost 3 PM on Friday, so our trip through traffic and 360 mile trip to Manzy still allowed us to see 15 laps of the main and go to the Big Apple for a snack and get to bed by 1 AM, You figure it out, but a little clue is the trucks were running over 85 mph and I just kinda tagged along. Look for me in Ventura next Saturday as Mrs Wags makes a visit to Las Vegas to see her mother. I’d rather be at the beach!

FEATURE: (40 laps) 1. Cory Kruseman, 2. Jeremy Sherman, 3. Tracy Hines, 4. Rickie Gaunt, 5. Troy Rutherford, 6. Mike Spencer, 7. Charles Davis, Jr., 8. Rip Williams, 9. Damion Gardner, 10. Levi Jones, 11. Josh Ford, 12. Brian Venard, 13. Jeff Slinkard, 14. Greg Bragg, 15. Dave Darland, 16. Robert Hall, Jr., 17. Tony Jones, 18. Alan Ballard, 19. Mike Leslie, 20. Eric Wilkins, 21. Bud Kaeding. NT

NEW USAC/CRA SPRINT CAR STANDINGS: 1-Kruseman-177; 2-Gardner-157; 3-Williams-140; 4-Rutherford-138; 5-Gaunt-133; 6-Hines-128; 7-Kirby-117; 8-Sherman-111; 9-T.Jones-108; 10-Ford-98.