By Ken Wagner
April 26, 2009

When you say tacky track, SHAZAAM, the PAS! This week Perris’s oval was pretty heavy and the hardcore fast runners took advantage with some pretty strong elbows up action. When the checkered flag flew, DynOmite David Cardey was first under the starter’s checkered flag after a late battle with Blake Miller in the 30 lap sprint to $2500. Cardey was fast all night and once he took the lead, only a few yellow flags brought the field closer to him. He stretched it out to a full straightaway lead at one point. He started the day out 6th quick, then ran second in his heat and started 5th in the main event line-up. He had the red # 39 Crossno Viper flying, and really never looked back once he got the lead, that is until the late flurry with Blake. It was his 4th all time win and from the looks of his driving, there are more to come.

Click here for this weeks pics. Click here for Doug Allen's great work, too.

Bullet Blake Miller was 2nd quick in qualifying, won his heat and started 7th in the feature. There was a 6 or 7 way battle for the podium this week, and I mean it was hard to see everything going one out thereas slide jobs and cool moves abounded! The young redheaded Blake calmly weathered all battles and took the lead from DynOmite on the white flag lap. On the last lap Cardey put a slider on him going into turn 1 and they cleared turn two coming out side by side. It looked like anyone’s race, but Cardey pulled ahead going down the back stretch and set his car in the middle of the turns. While Blake tried to get it back going around 3 & 4, it wasn’t to be as he unhappily settled for 2nd place when Cardey took his groove away from him for a dramatic finish. Blake continues to shine in the Gardner # 93 car so look for his next win very soon, too.

While Rip Williams has a perpetual smile on his face these days watching his three son’s race, yet he still has time to run his own sprinter to the front. He grabbed the last podium spot this week and continues to show his boys the way to the front. This week he ran a strong third and continues his own growing legacy. In fact, he will be inducted in the Sprint car Hall of fame in Knoxville, IA this coming May, so history marches on for the young over 50 driver who still has a few wins in his mind to unload. His oldest son Cody ran 11th in the main with some smooth driving this week as he is preety patient and consistant. Cody’s younger brother Austin didn’t fair quite as well as he was his usual aggressive self, but not lucky when his night ended in the semi with a problem with the car.

The excitement of the race began at the first green flag when it was immediately apparent that Tony Jones and Danny Sheridan were both on the move while first Jordan Hermansader then Josh Ford and finally Cardey held the lead in that order. Showtime Sheridanwas pulling from his 14th starting spot hard on the gas as the Cowboy was trying to go from 6th to second by getting past the third running Ripper at this early point in the race. As the Cowboy was charging the top of the heavy cushion relentlessly looking for a way by, Showtime was headed down low to get to the same spot coming to turn four. Suddenly Rip banged the cushion, set his car and was hitting the gas to jump out of the 4th turn corner. Unfortunately, the slowing of the black # 3 caught Tony in no man’s land and he slid into Ripper and launched himself into a quick set of snap rolls, landing on Danny’s roll cage, before he fell off, and they collected Cory Kruseman and then Mike Spencer in an expensive pile. Everyone but Jones restarted as they quickly assessed damage, repaired what they could and pushed them off. The mad scramble of Showtime after the restart was awesome to watch as he went from the tail up to 4th at the end of the race, on an outstanding drive of the battered blue bugger. There was bent down tubes and more as the chassis is in need of some work. They used a ton of blue duct tape to pull together the hood so they could continue. New point leader Mike Spencer also came from the back to get eighth place at the end as well. It was a good race to watch with a lot of action.

Greg Bragg scored his second straight 5TH place finish and was the hard charger of the race coming from his 16th starting spot. Another good job by the young man from up around the Visalia area as he makes the Moosemobile sing every week. Matt Mitchell showed some savvy this week as he had his best finish of the year in 6th place using patience and a fast car to finish well. Alan Ballard might have had the best driving job of the night as he had to weather a pretty good crash on the start of the Semi when he got squeezed a tad coming out of turn 4 and collected a few other cars as announcer Scott Deloisio screamed Talledaga, Talledaga, Talledega when 22 cars went every which way trying to avoid the # 75 car getting sideways. On the complete restart, with everyone who could run getting their spot back, he then outran Special Spencer in the little red sucker to make the main. He was up as far as 4th before settling for 7th with an overheating car in the main. Ray Stansberry used a special speed secret in removing the lower part of the hood to allow more air, and it worked! Alan had his elbows up for sure this week!

Jace and twin brother Richard VanderWeerd took a break from the bandit series to run against the 410’s this week. Richard was 12th in the main. I think I heard they were 16 years old, but they both can drive hard and are race winners already in that Bandit series. Andrew Reinbold, Bruce St James, R J Johnson and Jeremy Sherman were the Phoenix connection towing over this week. With the close of Manzy perhaps this will become more regular deal for those who want to race their 410’s. R J was the only one making the main as he finished 15th. Jeremy continues to get settled in Dwight Cheney’s # 42 as he had some smoking problems in his heat and was too far back in the semi to get a transfer to the main. When he gets it sorted out, watch out, he doesn’t have nearly 100 wins in Arizona for nothing and his nickname of the Sherminator means business. Bruce St James was 1oth quick and ran fast, but had several arguments with the wall, and eventually went to the trailer with what appeared to be minor damage to the fast car. Poor Ludwig Solberg IV who is just trying to get seat time and improve. His shiney tires didn't help him in the main this week as he got punted out of the leaders way near the end while he was minding his own business. The faster similar red car should have just passed him, instead of nudging him into the wall. There will be some expensive repairs made to the # 84 car before the next race.

We collected $205 of Wagsbucks this week, thank you to all of you for the help. It ended up in the hands of Joe Gunderson who had a rough night trying to make the main. He was thankful and said it would help in buying a new front axle that was broken when he got on his head in the Semi. See, it helps and they are glad to receive it.

I am very saddened by this next news. Cat and Jack Alger have been my friends for many years going back to the Ascot days. They have been Wagtimes supporters from the beginning and always came to the races together. Cat was a top softball player in her youth and a really good bowler for many years while Jack worked on motorcycles in some form or another most of his life. As I was a Kawasaki employee, Jack would always impart some cycle secret news to me from his world when we got together. Cat was at the races this week as she told me Jack has terminal cancer and is not doing well. They are two dear people to me and it breaks my heart to hear this sad news. She said he sent her racing this week and I am glad she came! My thoughts and prayers go out to Cat and Jack and the family.

It’s three weeks until the next CRA race at Hanford, followed by the PAS the next week for the annual Salute to Indy event and then the third race of May at Tulare on the last weekend. Man, I have some time off, again, so maybe now I will get over to Ventura to check out the “new” improved track. Every year Jim Naylor modifies, improves and adds stuff to the best little track by the sea, and this past winter was no exception. With new walls and a slightly different track layout, word is it is fast and racy! Hopefully, I can manage to rustle over and check it out on one of my excursions from Las Vegas.

Speaking of our short racing schedule this year, I have been doing some research and I can’t believe how many races the old CRA ran in the 1980’s. They averaged over 50 races a year for that decade with a high watermark of 56 races in 84’! During the first half of the 1980’s, the famous Dean and Bubby show was awesome with their combined win totals five years in a row more than the current number of races being run by the USAC/CRA, as it was over 30 between them. Bubby had 18 wins and Dean 16 during their most prolific year together in 1983, and the average was about 15 wins by each during those five years. To think that I saw most of that makes it even more amazing. This was remarkable and especially when you realize the big names that ran against them week after week. Jimmy Oskie, John Redican, Eddie Wirth, Brad Noffsinger, Buster Venard, Lealand McSpadden, Ron Shuman, Mike Sweeney, Clark Templeman, Rick Goudy, Chuck Gurney, Gene Brown, and even Steve Kinser, plus many more hot dogs! Those were winners they were beating week after week, so that makes them really something special, doesn’t it? That was the good old years and the legend of those battles will live on in our memory forever! I can still see it all now with the little red sucker diving low and the yellow, red and blue Gas Chem car charging high! What that was can be summed up in few words, history in So Cal is pretty amazing.

Oh yeah a funny story for you, sort of. I was pulled over heading home after the race this week. No I wasn’t speeding for a change, I just spilled a bag of chewy trail mix and was leaning over trying to clean up the mess or slavage a few bites. Unfortunately a Chippie was just coming up behind me in the fast lane, and I in the middle one, when he suddenly darted over behind me and turned on those world war II search lights that they used to find planes in the sky for miles and miles, at least they were really bright, and it pretty much blinded me. I pulled over like a good boy, parked and rolled down the passenger window to wait for him while I gathered up the usual stuff to hand him as he was coming to talk to me. I had no clue to why the sudden blood churning experience. I kept my hands in view as I was trained by my friend Mike Clark, and the first words out of his mouth was “did you know you crossed the white line twice?” I was smiling as I pointed to the mess and he actually laughed! After looking me in the eyes and checking for booze or sleepiness, that’s the reason he stopped me he said, he looked at my driver license and sent me on my way. No, I didn’t have my signature red and white polka dot hat on or he would have cited me for sure. I will say in warning, I saw more black and white cruisers out this weekend than any other trip I have taken to the LA area in years, with several actually hiding behind little hills. So beware you speeders, this is a big warning, they are out there watching us with more intensity than usual! I was a good boy as now I have 72 MPH MAX tattooed on the inside of my eyelids trying to keep it under my preferred running speed. Another great racing weekend, I hope they keep coming!

FEATURE: (30 laps - With Starting Positions) 1. David Cardey (5th), 2. Blake Miller (7th), 3. Rip Williams (4th), 4. Danny Sheridan (14th), 5. Greg Bragg (16th), 6. Matt Mitchell (11th), 7. Alan Ballard (10th), 8. Mike Spencer (9th), 9. Tyler Brown (15th), 10. Cory Kruseman (8th), 11. Cody Williams (12th), 12. Richard VanderWeerd (18th), 13. Jordan Hermansader (1st), 14. Garrett Hansen (23rd), 15. R.J. Johnson (17th), 16. Bill Rose (19th), 17. John Aden (13th), 18. Ludvig Solberg IV (20th), 19. Josh Ford (2nd), 20. Tony Jones (6th), 21. Robert Ellis (22nd), 22. Henry Clarke (3rd), 23. Rodney Argo (21st). NT

FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Lap 1 Jordan Hermansader, Laps 2-8 Josh Ford, Laps 9-28 David Cardey, Lap 29 Blake Miller, Lap 30 David Cardey.

NEW LUCAS OIL USAC/CRA SPRINT CAR POINTS: 1-Mike Spencer-200; 2-David Cardey-184; 3-Blake Miller-179; 4-Cole Whitt-175; 5-Dave Darland-174; 6-Danny Sheridan-173; 7-Jesse Hockett-169; 8-Greg Bragg-155; 9-Garrett Hansen-152; 10-Jon Stanbrolugh-147.

NEXT LUCAS OIL USAC/CRA SPRINT CAR RACE: May 16 – Hanford, CA - Kings Speedway