By Ken Wagner
June 17, 2007

When Mike Spencer’s ride arrived at the Santa Maria track on Saturday, they had to air up a flat to roll it out of the trailer. That was the last time that things didn’t go their way this week. Mike drove the little red sucker from his 14th starting spot in the 30 lap main event into second place by lap 26. From there he just bided his time and blew by the leader for his second win of the year. His ability to stay out of trouble, unlike many of his competitors, and focus on getting to the front was amazing. He avoided crash after crash as the main event was elongated by yellow flags over and over.

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Mike drove the Temecula Valley Pipe & Supply, Shaver Specialties, Madera Produce # 50 like a veteran. His 3rd straight podium came after he was 5th quick, but he missed the 8 car inversion when he was 5th in his heat and started 14th on the grid.

When the name Pombo comes up, most have memories of an old Super Modified driver that was honored with a race named for him at Hanford for many years. But add Davey to the name and memories are of his 360 exploits and occasional visits with the CRA 410’s. Most recently he has been doing well in his 360 car, winning races and making his car owner, Glenn Crosssno proud. But, finishing second to the mighty CRA this week will open some eyes. His patience put him contention for a win and he was pressing Spencer at the end. Although it is only one race, Davey might open some more eyes with future visits to the CRA world. Driving the ITI Performance # 38S, Davey was 16th quick and finished 2nd in his heat before starting 10th and coming home strong in the main event.

Super Rickie Gaunt set fast time to start the night off, but missed the inversion and had to start back in 9th place in the main. It didn’t seem to bother him as he took the red M J B Plating, Endless Powder Coating, Simpson Race Products towards the front and beat his teammate, good for the old guys. Well actually, he’s not old, but Blake Miller is much younger and is doing well in his team’s camp. Rickie did a great job avoiding the usual small track ills and was proud to do well on the dry oval where he once won a wing race.

There were many on the disaster list this week as some just couldn’t catch a break. Local driver, Jeff Fiscus had a no no and went out right away after an early “encounter”. Scotty Weir wasn’t the author of his mangled crashed car, but was done as well after an incident. Tom Stansberry led the feature for 8 laps before having tire problems then some more help to the sidelines. Danny Sheridan started on the front row and dropped back immediately after the green flag flew. He then began a charge that ended when he tried to cut under another driver going into turn one, and just missed, getting the wall instead of the wanted pass. He missed by inches of success and was going for the win on his home track where he has had much success over the years.

There’s more! Jimmy Crawford was leading for six laps late in the race until Showtime’s move, and he was out. Josh Ford looked real strong early as he took the lead for ten laps and then had a tire problem. Upon restarting in the rear, he somehow got on his head and I missed the contact, if there was any, so he went on the trailer early. The Cowboy, Tony Jones looked like he was going to get this win, but had two separate incidents with two other cars that sent his car sideways away from the groove. The first he recovered quickly from and came back to challenge the offending helper. The second knocked his drag link askew and he was lucky they got it fixed quickly so he could return to the action. He hung around with a badly beat up tire, until a red flag allowed a change and his sixth place finish was the result. They call that a “great save” for the point leader, a lot like a hockey goalie makes when faced with a sure shot in front of him. Several others had one stop that they recovered from where their crews were allowed to save them, too.

Rodney Argo managed to escape several incidents, and led twice during the 30 laps, getting a strong 4th at the end, his best in a while. He was very racy on the slick track. Local driver Jesse Mack gets cudos from me as he was the 4th fastest car and he ran fifth in the main looking pretty smooth. Tyler Brown’s return was good for him in one of Glenn’s cars and he made good by running 7th.

Santa Maria sprint car racing for the CRA has always been a success with the fans, but recent car counts there gives reason to worry if we’ll be going back there much longer. There are reasons for continuing the running there, and for not being worth it to the promoter. The condition of the track this week was not even close to the glory days when the mud flew over the fences and the racing was always two grooved and exciting. Now it is more like a mini-Eldora with the slick track making it a gamble if you want to pass, with failure often enough, and it’s scary. The corners come up so quick drivers have to get momentum involved and often they pull the trigger and have no place to land, thus chaos happens, or SH for short.

The 20 cars and packed stands makes you wonder how this keeps working, but there were two other classes, and it does. Like always, all the fans were not there to see the sprinters, as much as I hate that. The car counts at SM have dwindled like everywhere else over the last few years from an average more near 25 or 26 a race. Some car owners don’t want this trip and the cost of bolt on stuff that normally happens, so it makes some stay home. The whole atmosphere at Santa Maria is so neat, it can’t be created or planned. It happened over the years and my memories there are really good up until the last few years of slick track racing originated by the outlaw demands on track prep, none. I of course will complain about track prep, or lack of it, because I remember how hard Doug Fort use to make his track so wet and wonderful, and we have all forgotten those days. The effort wasn’t there this trip with very little moisture on the oval, and none after the cars arrived. It was going black slick as soon as the sprinters spun a wheel, with only the stockers cutting that off between CRA races. The qualifying times aren’t close to the days when the track record was set. I miss those days!

With that all said, the many crashes and smashes probably made the fans OK with it and the racing was enjoyable, for all those who weren’t involved with a car that was whacked, so it was another success. I like going there and hope that this current low car count deal gets resolved thruout the CRA race locations, so we will see.

My trip from and back to LV was a total of 12 hours driving this week, so I better love it. It was worth the trip as being with my friends in racing gives me a lot of pleasure. A lunch at Jocko’s was a tradition that some still enjoy and the coolness at the track was a good thing. See you at the PAS on Saturday, be there!

FEATURE: (30 laps) 1. Mike Spencer, 2. Davey Pombo, 3. Rickie Gaunt, 4. Rodney Argo, 5. Jesse Mack, 6. Tony Jones, 7. Tyler Brown, 8. J Hicks, 9. Rip Williams, 10. Tony Everhart, 11. Bill Jones, 12. David Cardey, 13. Blake Miller, 14. Brian Camarillo, 15. Josh Ford, 16. Jimmy Crawford, 17. Danny Sheridan, 18. Tom Stansberry, 19. Scotty Weir, 20. Jeff Fiscus. NT

FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Laps 1-2 Argo, Laps 3-10 Stansberry, Laps 11-20 Ford, Laps 21-26 Crawford, Lap 27 Argo, Laps 28-30 Spencer.

NEW LUCAS OIL USAC/CRA SPRINT CAR POINTS: 1-Jones-1,095; 2-Spencer-974; 3-Gaunt-944; 4-Sheridan-921; 5-Weir-790; 6-Williams-715; 7-Cory Kruseman-657; 8-R.J. Johnson-551; 9-Cardey-524; 10-Ford-483.

NEXT LUCAS OIL USAC/CRA SPRINT CAR RACE: June 23 – Perris (CA) Auto Speedway