By Ken Wagner
July 6, 2009

On a beautiful but warm low 90’s day in Perris we had another good racing night with pageantry, excitement, games for the kids and drama, but not enough methanol in the leader’s fuel cell to make the little blue bugger a repeat winner of the Firecracker 30 event. As several cars began starving for go juice at the end of a race delayed for a nasty pit incident, Cory Kruseman made the final veteran moves to hold off Blake Miller and claim his first USAC/CRA win of the year. It was a racy night with many making their runs and in multiple grooves even with the wind and heat trying to mangle the track surface as much as possible. Overcoming that was a big job, but the PAS water trucks worked and they did it and great racing was the result. It ain’t always that way in the desert, but the big crowd deserved a racy track.

For my pics Click here. For Mrs Wag's pics Click here. For the Doug Allen pics Click here for them.

The fast paced action gave us five lead changes and only the last one was because of Danny Sheridan’s running out of fuel after he was a blue streak most of the race. The Kruser started 5th on the main event grid and was running a low line out of turn 4 to move up to challenge for the lead late in the race. He fought with several of the front runners as he showed renewed grit in putting himself in position to win. He was 4th quick and ran 2nd in his heat on a surface that had been blasted with water all day and evening, just trying to give the racers a race track on this Independence Day. I can say that can’t I, Independence Day? Anyway, it worked as the two grooves made for some hot passing and exciting action all night.

This was Cory’s 92nd all time So Cal win tying him with one of the all time greats Lealand McSpadden, whose son Jeff and three of his grandkids were watching nearby this reporter. Cory’s 28th USAC win puts him second behind Damion Gardner’s 34 in the modern day times of our racing. A good night for the Kruser as he showed he still had something in his tank for this veteran field and took home the Firecracker 30 for 2009. It was his 4th Firecracker win at the PAS.

Bullet Blake Miller brought out a brand new Gardner Sled this week and boy was it stunningly beautiful, a picture of brilliant blue and chrome! First time out …. and fast time was garnered by the young redhead, and thus he started 8th in the main event. When that started, he came forward like a bullet, taking the lead from the Kruser with three laps to go. He looked like he had something left, but the second checkered and yellow flags flying at the same time this season happened, and confused the ending for some. Blake fell back as soon as the two flags flew many car lengths behind, but not because of the yellow, he had a broken rear-end and coasted across the finish line. His lucky star was shining as they gave him second when the finish was called at the end of the last completed lap, yet they completed 30 laps? With this finish he took over the points lead from David Cardey who dropped out early in the race with a mechanical problem.

That early finish put Mike Spencer in the third spot having led six laps early in the 30 lapper after a nice pass on Sheridan. Mike was aggressive early as he looked to make another win for Bruce Bromme Jr who has won a ton of races over the years with red cars under his leadership. Not to be this time as he was 3rd quick and won his heat before starting 6th in the main event. Nice guy Spencer is so quiet, he just lets his driving do all his talking.

Let’s go with the “aw shucks” group first this week as a lot of bad things happened for plenty of our CRA racers. Showtime Sheridan’s bad luck streak continued to beat him up as he started on the outside of the front row for the third straight race, four if you count a 360 race. The first two ended with a first lap crash after getting nudged out by a white car both times. This time he completed the difficult first lap and went on to lead 15 laps when he ran out of fuel. Even though the standing rule is to wait two laps for a car to return, they unexplainably restarted on the next lap, leaving him on the push off area ready to go. He ended up lucky 13th. If the team could blame anybody, this might be easier to take, but that much needed Lady Luck has been suspiciously absent from the team efforts this year. They are overdue and have declared they will just work harder to get to the winner’s circle the rest of the year. It might surprise you to know there are only 11 scheduled races left in the CRA season.

The reason he and several others had fuel problems was too many yellow flag laps waiting for restarts! After one incident on the track, a lengthy wait happened because of a nasty accident in the pits, and this with the cars circling the track and ready to go. Young Hot Shot Dennis Howell was stopped on the track after something I missed and was towed to his pit area. When the tow truck started to lower the car, something in the cabling broke, causing the broken car to land on Dennis Howell Sr’s foot. Reports are he lost a toenail and part of another toe on his foot, but will be fine after mending. During the long time it took for him to be loaded into the ambulance and transferred to the hospital, the cars still circled with them trying to keep heat in the tires by buzzing them, thus eating up fuel. Don’t know how many yellow flag laps they ran to this point, but Danny’s fuel cell was full when the race started.

Super Rickie Gaunt wasn’t distracted a bit by his two sons, Chasson and Maverick, doing their own racing thing in their Focus cars this week as he stepped into David Miller’s # 66 car for a ride. He had former Sprint Car driver Mike Kirby and special chassis man Okie Sampson working on the boys cars, so he felt everything was under control. Rickie was 7th quick and second in his heat as he gave the Miller car a great ride all night. Better than great as he surfed up to second in the feature as he found something no one else had in the strong car and was looking to get a win. Unfortunately, he biked it way high coming out of turn three and although he did a marvelous job getting it back on all four tires, he was pointed directly at the 4th turn fence, where he suddenly planted it hard with a whack to end his night.

Matt Mitchell appeared to lose power early in the race, and was slowing in the groove when Ludwig Solberg IV happened by and clipped him, then bounced into the K-rail, ruining his front end, and sending sorrow to his big group of fans cheering him on nearby us. He became the first car out of the 30 lapper. Matt was the second one out as he did not return either. While the line-up was going on, point leader David Cardey pulled in with his own problems. He would not return as mechanical failure was reported by announcer Scott Deloisio.

Some good running stories did paint the night and included Garrett Hansen grabbing 4th on a good ride, Greg Bragg 5th after his oil fire in hot laps, Josh Ford was 6th in his strong effort and hard charger Andrew Reinbold coming from 21st to 7th on a good ride. More good stuff had youngsters Mathew “Mad Dog” Shedarowich come from 20th to 8th and Ronnie “The Great” Gardner getting his best finish ever coming from 23rd to 9th. In addition, Greg Alexander who is related to Steve and Mark Alexander did well in Ray Stansberry’s # 75 this week with a 10th place finish in the main.

The night had some moments as the opening flag ceremony was Bobby Burke’s voice with our National Anthem and a flyover of a B17 (someone told me that, so I don’t know for sure,) but it was an electric feeling as the huge bird flew right at us and soared up and away overhead. Wow! Having our American flag flying everywhere and the Independence Day celebration continuing on and on was a welcome sight. The fireworks painting the sky went off at 9 PM during intermission, and made a shorter night for us travelers. The $15 admission fee was talked about by the paying customers as they were pleased with the cheap ticket price! All in all, a good night for everyone as the PAS was packed.

This was one of those days that will go into my memory banks with many highlights as the racing was good, the place was full and we had a great time. It was 23 hours long from our time up in the morning to getting home and back to bed, after a packed Saturday of fun and sun. They might want to think about a white line around the bottom of turn four, as several got way over the inside berm, either because they didn’t have the K-rail there to help mark it, or it was the faster way around.

Mr Goodbucks sent $ 100 to the car owners of the following cars who missed the main event from the semi this week: # 33 Johnny Bates, # 40 Royal Adderson, # 55 Tony Everhart, # 62X Jerry Welton, and # 54 John Butler. Bonus money from Mr Goodbucks of $ 100 also went to # 2B Lance Butler, # 66 Rickie Gaunt after his crash in the main while running second and # 29 Mike Steele after blowing his motor. Steele also received an additional $200 of Wagsbucks collected this day because of the motor problem. Thank you Mr Goodbucks, they all were very happy for the extra money! Mr Goodbucks just wants to help the guys to come back again and race and as he says $100 is not a lot of money, but if you missed the show, it will pay for pit passes or some fuel or something. Thanks to everyone for the help for our racers.

NEWS FLASH FROM WAGSWORLD …… It is with a heavy heart that I, Ken Wagner, announce some very sad news …………….., wait just a dang minute, this is not a death note coming out of WagsWorld, it’s merely a shot of reality, dangit! With the loss of Ventura as the Wagsdash home for the past 11 great years, the opportunities to schedule another venue were few and far between. I have to take the blame because I really thought my friend at the greatest little track by the sea would change his mind and everything would be fine, But NOOOOO, he made a decision and stuck to it! Then, I let a lot of time pass with no progress, and here’s where reality comes in. I had HOPE that something could, not would, but could work out. But just the word HOPE means you know you’ve tried to pass it on to a higher power on this land, and frankly it just doesn’t work that way.

There isn’t any one particular reason that caused me to stop the 19th annual from running this year, but it was a long list of things that sent me the signal to start working on next year, if I want this little guy race to continue on into the future. After realizing I am the only one who for the last 20 years has collected and handed all your money directly to the racers to a tune of over $500,000, who else would be that crazy! I guess we should keep on truckin’!

I obviously need the CRA to officiate my Wagsdash event because those drivers are the ones I have supported the last 20 years. The VRA guys who have joined us many times have always been welcome and a big part of the show, but I didn’t want to stay in Ventura and make it a 360 show. I know some of them would travel wherever we run the Wagsdash because they are friends of Wagtimes and supporters of our goals. Some observers believe the 410’s are dying and we will be running 360’s in the future anyway, but I am stubborn and I want my guys to be Wagsdash runners.

When I finally woke up and faced the music, I had four Wagsdash venue opportunities presented to me beginning in May and they were all predicated on something happening outside of my control. The first and brightest looked to be Victorville as I met with Mike Gibson, and although he was unfamiliar with the Wagsdash and what we do, he had agreed it could work there if, and that was a BIG IF, the USAC/CRA would run there. For a while it looked like an outside promotion would bring the CRA there, but over time it became obvious, it wasn’t likely to happen this year, so that’s one down.

I had a conversation with Steve Faria of Tulare’s Thunderbowl and he was all for running it there, but had no open date either. He has two big races at the end of the year and trying to get another crowd out for third one late in the year was iffy at best. He was open to adding it to the first day of the new Pacific Open in November, but again that is a signature race and being an add-on doesn’t appear to be a good thing for us, and we haven’t even begun to build a crowd there like we once had. I can see the possibilities to make our race work there because Steve is open to anything we want to do.

There was another option and it came thru Danny Sheridan, who is the King of Santa Maria! Danny had spoken to the promoter Chris Kearns about our plight and it turns out he was interested in doing something with us. I missed my opportunity to talk with him on my last trip up there, but I knew he would have to add a race like Victorville that would bring our low buck guys up there. With that seemingly unlikely, I didn’t pursue it and it is my fault. I could see our race working fine there as the interaction of the fans and pits would make it easier for the auction and chili feed. Nearly like Ventura’s access, but not quite, still it has real possibilities and I’ll be checking with Chris to further investigate the possibilities there.

Perris was the logical replacement for us, as it is our home track and has a bigger fan base, but with their cutback schedule, there was no date late in the year for us to jump on. I am not sure it will be any different next year, but we shall see. It was offered that we could tag onto the Glenn Howard Memorial, but it didn’t take me long to nix that as I had too much respect for what Glenn did for racing to intrude on his day. A couple of weeks ago I was offered an August date to call my own, but after much thought, and many Wagtimer E-mails back and forth, I realized the difficulty the heat would make it, the short two month window to raise enough money and the sudden realization that half of my dependable Wagtimes workers had made other plans in their schedule for that date, imagine that. Perris in October would have been perfect, but it was not to be. We will pursue it for 2010.

Now there is a list of challenges to overcome, but the most serious beyond the tracks is money. I have about $1000 left over from calendar money from last year, plus money specified for the Wagsdash this year from some faithful fans who always ask “WHERE” each time they see me. Normally by now I have at least $3000 in the bank. I may decide to run a 6 car, 10 lap “dash” to pass this money on this year or send it to the 2010 race, I don’t know yet. There are many recommendations for both options, so time will pass and we shall see. A lot depends on the economics of the racing world. One person even suggested we do a New Years Eve event with just sprint cars and open the year with Chili and a bang!

It all comes down to the basics and the major financial problems suffered by racers, no not just the racers but the country now that we have a socialistic approach coming from the white house. It is obvious we are all suffering. The reasons stack up as a loss of jobs, houses losing equity value, 401k’s losing 40% or more of life savings, and small businesses suffering to the point of closing, that is the problem. With nothing on the horizon even pointing to better times, it all looks bleak today! Many of our racers are supported by their own businesses or others with a small business helping out, much of which has stopped cold. Many of our racers are in the “trades” and the trades are not doing well.

Back to my point, as I am getting wound up now. A great many racers have no discretionary money left to race with and their coffers are empty, if not seriously close to being that way. Thus the small car counts we are experiencing as they have to keep their cars in the garage, and in a way, making money by not racing. Some teams just don’t have the money to even drive to the races let alone buy gas to get there, buy fuel and tires to race and, heaven forbid, parts to fix any boo boo’s along the racing path. So, it’s no wonder we don’t have a very large list of low buckers for me to even choose for a Wagsdash race!

Today I would suggest that all of you who want to help the recovery of our racing, to take a little out of your own pocket to put in a car owners racing budget to let him do what he wants to do, and that is go racing for you. Something has to give and more fans with more donations to their cause is just a start to keep us going. If you look at NASCAR sponsor cutbacks, you can see the writing on the wall? We fans can be part of the fix by helping out now, just do it!

Over the years I have been blessed with faithful followers and supporters who have made this the best little guy race in the country by giving up their hard earned cash, donating things to turn into cash and working to make it all happen on the 18 prior Wagsdash events. I thank all of you for your helping me to sustain this dream for the low buck racers, but it is time to take a mini break and work on next year. I think my efforts and that of those who believe in this goal should be concentrated on the 2010 Wagsdash and make it the biggest one yet. Give me a corporate sponsor, PLEASE. Oh, I guess I got carried away, again.

It is my belief that now is not the time to shoehorn this race in to an already set in stone schedule at any track and I am announcing with great sadness that the 2009 Wagsdash has been officially postponed until next year. In the meantime I will be collecting Wagsbucks for the weekly little guy hard luck awards and doling out Mr Goodbucks money as it comes in to me. And for you, your challenge is to support the racers by going to the races, by helping me help the racers or, just as good, you helping a racer personally, it’s all good. Now, let’s get at it! See you in August at Perris for our next race. I may drop in at another Santa Maria 360 show, as I get bored waiting for our schedule to get to the next race.

7/4/09 FEATURE at the PAS: (30 laps - With Starting Positions) 1. Cory Kruseman (5th), 2. Blake Miller (8th), 3. Mike Spencer (6th), 4. Garrett Hansen (4th), 5. Greg Bragg (12th), 6. Josh Ford (16th), 7. Andrew Reinbold (21st), 8. Mathew Shedarowich (20th), 9. Ronnie Gardner (23rd), 10. Greg Alexander (18th), 11. Jordan Hermansader (10th), 12. Jimmy Crawford (22nd), 13. Danny Sheridan (2nd), 14. Rickie Gaunt (3rd), 15. John Aden (13th), 16. Tyler Brown (9th), 17. Austin Williams (17th), 18. Rip Williams (1st), 19. Dennis Howell (14th), 20. Cody Williams (15th), 21. David Cardey (7th), 22. Matt Mitchell (11th), 23. Ludvig Solberg IV (19th). NT.

FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Laps 1-5 Sheridan, Laps 6-11 Spencer, Laps 12-21 Sheridan, Laps 22-26 Kruseman, Lap 27 Miller, Laps 28-30 Kruseman.

NEW LUCAS OIL USAC/CRA SPRINT CAR POINTS: 1-Blake Miller-471; 2-Mike Spencer-467; 3-David Cardey-458; 4-Garrett Hansen-434; 5-Greg Bragg-369; 6-Danny Sheridan-335; 7-Cory Kruseman-301; 8-Rip Williams-286; 9-Matt Mitchell-275; 10-Tyler Brown-218.

NEXT LUCAS OIL USAC/CRA SPRINT CAR RACE: August 1- Perris (CA) Auto Speedway