Traditional Sprint Car FanSite

See You At The Races!!!

A Win For Ariaz At Altamont
by Debbie Shipherd

April 17, 2004...Alum-Line's Pat Ariaz of Manteca won the main event at Altamont
Motorsports Park on Saturday, April 17 from a front row start, taking the lead from pole starter John Silva of Tracy on the 1st lap, and holding off the hard charging Gordon Rodgers for the entire caution free 20 laps. Ariaz also took the win in the fast 6 lap heat race.

The chance of showers and the extremely cold and windy conditions forced Altamont's promoters to run a rain schedule, which meant that after qualifying, only trophy dashes and feature events would be run. With a small field of NCMA teams that braved the weather, all the drivers generously elected to run a 6 lap heat race instead of the dash to allow
everyone to get some laps in before the feature event, and agreed to shorten the feature from 30 to 20 laps. This was a bit of a disappointment for rookie driver John Silva, who qualified his Dan's Racer Safety sprint car fast enough to run in his 1st NCMA trophy dash. Another personal victory for the evening was the qualifying time for Manteca's Michael Zarevich, who clocked in under a 20 second lap time for his 1st time at Altamont's fast 1/2 mile track. Winton's Gordon Rodgers clocked in with an amazing fast time of 18.506.

After the trophy dashes, Altamont's promoters scheduled a special Kid's Night event with all of the drivers going in to the infield to throw autographed stuffed animals to the kids in the stands, which was a bit of a challenge in the strong wind, but a treat for the fans. Prior to the main event, a stroll though the pits was eerily quiet, as most crews were huddled in their trailers trying to stay warm.

Fast qualifier Rodgers pulled a 3rd invert, putting John Silva and Pat Ariaz on the front row. Silva jumped into the lead at the green, but was overtaken by Ariaz on lap 1, and Rodgers pulled into 2nd on lap 2. J& J Dairy's Ed Amador passed Silva smootly on lap 6, moving into 3rd. Rodgers made several attempts at passing Ariaz in lapped traffic, but
Ariaz held him off, and at the checkers it was Ariaz, Rodgers, Modesto's Ed Amador, John Silva, and Contra Costa Auto Part's Keith Shipherd in the top 5.

The NCMA Spec Sprints will be racing again on dirt at Chowchilla Speedway's 1/3 mile track on Saturday, April 24. This will be the 2nd race in the West Coast Select Series, a series of 6 races open to all Spec Sprint legal cars, following the NCMA rules, and with a special point fund. Drive safe, have fun, and take care.

Summary:
Fast Qualifier: Gordon Rodgers 18.506
Heat 1: Pat Ariaz, Ed Amador, Gordon Rodgers, John Silva, Steve Amador,
Keith Shipherd, Michael Zarevich, Burt Siverling
Main Event: Pat Ariaz, Gordon Rodgers, Ed Amador, John Silva, Keith
Shipherd, Steve Amador, Michael Zarevich, Burt Siverling


SITE SEARCH

WEBSITE
 HOME PAGE
 LATEST UPDATES
 MESSAGE BOARD
 CHAT ROOMS
 CLASSIFIEDS
 BUSINESS CARDS
 ADVERTISING
 SPONSORS
 MULTIMEDIA
 ACTION GALLERY
 GIFT IDEAS
 ONLINE STORE
 LINKS

SANCTIONS
 SPRINT CARS
 OTHERS

RACING
 RACE RESULTS
 RACE SCHEDULES
 PRESS RELEASES
 RACE COLUMNS
 NEWS & NOTES
 TEAM NOTES
 DRIVER ROSTERS
 DRIVER PROFILES
 RACE TRACKS
 RACING INFO

MISC
 VOTING BOOTH
 BULLETIN BOARD
 DTRSC SKINS
 FUN PAGE
 RACE FANS
 TRIBUTES
 SPECIAL THANKS

Get your own FREE Guestbook from htmlGEAR
 SIGN GUESTBOOK
 VIEW GUESTBOOK

EMAIL US

T-SHIRTS
& MORE