By Ken Wagner
May 18, 2009

The always entertaining Tulare Thunderbowl was the goal of my travels this week as I hooked up with the Kittle Motorsports crew to make the trip up there. The crowd looked pretty good and the evening only ran late because of a car that got caught on the top of the fence and the ensuing 30 minutes to get it down. The track normally is pretty tacky, but having three wide tire classes, Winged sprints, Modifieds and the traditional 360’s, they burn it up pretty good and made for a very slick feature for the Bandits who ran last in the evening order of features.

For my pics Click here. For Steve Lafonds work this week Click here for that. For the Doug Allen pics Click here for them. Also, you can see the Wagtimes story of the week with me traveling with the Kittle Krew. Click here for that.

Peter Murphy started outside the second row of the scheduled 30 lapper, shortened to 20, no 25, and took the lead early on in the race. He was pretty much out on his own as a number of others took chase after him to no avail. The most successful was Danny Sheridan who set fast time at 15.2 something and then pulled the 10 inversion pill, egads, so he would start 10th. His temp teammate Dennis “Hot Shot” Howell was very impressive for the 2nd week in a row, as he was 3rd quick and started 8th on the main event grid. He and Danny played tag team racing thru the pack as the youngster ran high against the wall, throwing rooster tails like Lealand use to, coming out of turn four each lap, causing one pit walker to ask “who is that hot shot that came out of the Kittle trailer”? Danny did that bottom feader, slow trackin’ deal that has to give the driver a heart attack when he nearly stops down there before picking it up. It worked OK for him, but was slow going and eventually put him on Peter’s fuel cell to chase to the end.

It was obviously Peter’s night, winning the race in honor of Brian and Chris Faria, because of several things. One, he had a flat tire when the checkers flew at the end. Two, Danny found the rubber groove too close to the end and didn’t have time to utilize it. And three, when “hot shot” Howell was terrorizing Peter midway thru the race ,by running right on his push bar far into each turn around the oval, Peter one time checked up and Dennis climbed his fuel cell. WOW, somehow he recovered and came down and still tried to run under him, but came up short.

At the checkered, there was trouble ahead, and not because a crash was in the path of the leaders like normal when you see a checkered/yellow happen. As Peter came under the flag stand the checkers came out behind him and the yellow light came on at the same time? The ensuing melee then happened with both “Showtime” and Dennis getting slammed by several cars after having nowhere to go when their slowdown path was blocked going into turn one. Don’t know how that could happen, but it was an added expense for those two cars and several others that were involved in the pileup.

Brent Kaedingcame to town with his fast wing car and drove Steve Watt’s # 81 car, doing double duty. Biggie told me he was thrilled having his “hero” drive his car, it was like a dream come true. I didn’t see the official finish, but he was in the top five I think. He had the distinction (?) of being the first to qualify in both his 410 wing car and the 360 traditional sprinter.

This isn’t a wing report, but a young driver named Kyle Larson was extremely impressive in his heat battling with Tyler Walker and Tim Kaeding on equal terms. He is 16 years old and doesn’t take anything from anybody. He got his car hooked on the top of the wall when he crashed and climbed to the top in the “dash”. In his feature, he started last due to being late to the grid and I think got to 5th or 6th on some heady driving.

There will be money from Mr Goodbucks this week as the top five, (AKA 6th thru 10th place finishers),who run the semi and DO NOT transfer to the main or take a provisional, will get some cash to help their pocketbook. Somebody can match it if they wish, just let me know and I can do two sets of envelopes! I already have $50 bucks in the Wagsbucks kitty for this week, so see me out front and add to it, please.

Still working on the Wagsdash and will be talking with the Perris management this weekend after the races, so we will see if that is a possibility. I haven’t heard anything from the possible Victorville 410 show, so no news there.

I will be at Perris sans Mrs Wags this week, so looking to have another exciting weekend. The following week the CRA returns to Tulare and you don’t want to miss that one!!!!!