By Ken Wagner
August 5, 2007

The summer is winding down as the car counts continue to plummet, but the racings still the bomb. Perris was the site this week of Mike Spencer’s third win of the season and sixth lifetime with CRA. After setting fast time and running third in his heat, he started 8th in the main event and grabbed the lead on lap 10. From there the “little red sucker” checked out and was never threatened the rest of the 30 lap race. It was his 5th fast time of the year. The reason it took him so long to get the lead was too many yellow flags kept restarts going way too long.

My pics are up Click here. Mrs Wags is in Click here for those! Plus Doug Allen's latest Click here.

Driving the Temecula Valley Pipe & Supply, Shaver Specialties, Madera Produce # 50, Mike is at the top of his game now and will be out to close the gap behind the point leader and himself. Mike just returned from a stint in the Keith Kunz car at the Indiana Sprint week so had some racing while the rest of the locals were off.

Super Rickie Gaunt showed why he is the king of the semi’s when he won another one after all three Gardner cars were in the same heat and he had a little problem there and missed a transfer. He covered the semi easily enough and then started on the pole of the main event. He dropped back a bit at the start and then lost his breaks, but hung in there until late in the race when he slipped by a struggling Cowboy for second. The # 94 car has returned to it’s roots, black that is, and looked sharp on the track making less red cars in the field. The team car of Nadine Gardner is also back to black!

The reason Tony Jones “struggled” this week is a new wrinkle to an old cowboy story. Many wonder why he is called the “Cowboy” and if you were there this week you would have seen why, again. Tony was right on Spencer’s tail early in the race as they both moved to the front. The Cowboy was a few cars behind when he got thru lap traffic and into second place, so the new leader was out of sight. Tony ramped er’ up and began the chase, but here’s where the rodeo began as suddenly, “it” happened. He made a wild slide job to get by traffic, but got caught up in between the two cars and headed towards the one that stalled against the wall. Instead of stopping, he made like a trials bike rider, or a rodeo cowboy, and pointed his right front up the K-rail and squeezed the throttle enough to climb up, around the car and down the K-rail, and kept the motor running! Never seen that one before, as legends of this Cowboy continue, but on the restart he was still in second instead of last. Unfortunately, he had a right rear tire wobbling wildly enough it slowed him and he lost a spot in the last 6 laps, but remained surprisingly on the podium! As one pit observer said later, maybe it is his year!

John Butler is a new “to be” sprint car driver as he recently bought the Mark Heidenreich # 22 and was poised to work it out this week as the # 54. Unfortunately, he is a bit bigger than Mark, so when his head was above the roll cage, the officials put a halt to his debut. Some reconstruction will have to happen before Mr Butler makes another attempt.

Alan Ballard has been missing in action because of M-O-N-E-Y and gets a ride here and there now and then. Today was a now as he climbed into the Billy Wilkerson entry and made a charge. He ended up 13th in the main after a couple of problems, but drove the car hard for a third in his heat, and wants to race each week if he can find the right deal. Most deals include money, so he’s off working and saving as much as he can, and it was a good outing.

Garrett Hansen returned after a long time off after a bad crash that left him with a concussion that the doc said to rest. He is fine and won a midget race two weeks ago just to prove it. This week he took the unpainted # 70 to 8th in the main and will be back next week.

Tyler Brown had a great night as he ran from 9th to 4th on a good ride in one of the Glenn Crossno entries. His teammate David Cardey was sixth coming from 14th. Danny Sheridan had some problems this week after taking an ill-fated slide job that put him into the wall last week at Santa Maria, destroying that 360 car. In his heat he broke a push rod in the motor. The team hustled to find the right fit and repaired the motor before the feature where he started 18th. He nursed the blue dynamo # 18 up to 7th for the best passing job of the night. Jonny Bates returned after a money searching layoff and finished 11th in the main. Owning a sprint car is not cheap and is hard work!

My Mule had a flat this week after I got in the pits as a rubber valve stem broke. After a lot of help from the Kittle Motorsports crew, who don’t have tools for the wide short fat tires, I had to go off site and get a new one installed at a tire shop nearby. It got handled and the night went on without further incident.

Well Don Flanders has done it again, not only has he challenged everyone to pony up for the Wagsdash this year as he gave me a healthy check this week, and he also added $200 for Wagsbucks this week that ended up in the hands of a young rookie named Jonas Reynolds. Jonas is from San Diego and has run with the VRA in the past and is planning on running for rookie of the year with the CRA next season. He had his hands full with his mount this week and ended up on the hook, thus getting the Wagsbucks. When introduced to him, I asked if he had heard of the Wagsbucks and he smiled and said yes. Well I’ll be! Flanders donation put us over the $2000 mark! The 2008 non-wing racing calendar will be out next week. This year it is courtesy of Jim Fargo of JAF photography. It features Jim’s work and was created by Mrs Wags. Look for it and still only $20 each. See Ellen Ellis, Mrs Wags or me, or e-mail me and order some now.

Remember when a ways back the CRA features paid $4000 to win, $500 to start and the purse was somewhat higher than today’s current one? Remember when there was no home track and the CRA was a traveling club, yet the purses remained high? Remember when people didn’t like the President of the club and bitched so much there was a change and a new direction to go in? Remember how there were more cars and everything was cheaper including gas, fuel, parts, motors, race cars, pit admissions, general admissions and on and on? Remember when there was no entry fee and sometimes there was tow money? Remember Frank Lewis? Is it better or worse now, you tell me and is everybody happy! Well I’ll be.

The Indiana Sprint Week had a deserving winner in Dave Darland, but I feel for Jon Stanbrough who would have won that series if he could have had a provisional (hmmmmmmm) or borrowed a car the night he failed to qualify for the main. Hey, one owner re-registered his car for extra provisionals, couldn’t Jon have done that? I like Jon and the way he is tearing up everyone back there, but not running a regular USAC schedule, is just the way it is. If he were a USAC guy, would it have been different? Keep on winning Jon, they all know you are there.

It was a long layoff for me as I tried to get to Ventura and Santa Maria the last two weeks, but the gods weren’t with me so I missed those. Yes, it is still hot in Las Wages, but we are dealing with it, you have no choice. Our friend George from England, the guy who always sponsors the hard charger award at the Wagsdash, will be in town for a little visit. It will be good to see him and his family. I’ll be in Cooperstown next week for 10 days and returning on the 25th. I’ll be at the PAS on 9/1/07 with calendars. Come see me and help build the purse for the little guys. So far Kevin Kierce, Tyler Brown, David Cardey and Jonas Reynolds are in, so step up and help them earn some money!

FEATURE: (30 laps) 1. Mike Spencer, 2. Rickie Gaunt, 3. Tony Jones, 4. Tyler Brown, 5. Blake Miller, 6. David Cardey, 7. Danny Sheridan, 8. Garrett Hansen, 9. Brian Venard, 10. Seth Wilson, 11. Jonny Bates, 12. Nadine Gardner, 13. Alan Ballard, 14. Ross Millar, 15. Scotty Weir, 16. Josh Ford, 17. Rodney Argo, 18. Rip Williams, 19. Jonas Reynolds, 20. J Hicks, 21. Jimmy Crawford, 22. Tom Ogle. NT

FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Laps 1-9 Gaunt, Laps 10-30 Spencer.

NEW LUCAS OIL USAC/CRA SPRINT CAR POINTS: 1-Jones-1,303; 2-Spencer-1,131; 3-Gaunt-1,082; 4-Sheridan-1,041; 5-Weir-910; 6-Williams-858; 7-Cory Kruseman-778; 8-Cardey-680; 9-R.J. Johnson-650; 10-Miller-606.

NEXT LUCAS OIL USAC/CRA SPRINT CAR RACE: August 11 - Santa Maria (CA) Speedway