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PERRIS, CA -RIS- Tony Jones took home his second
win of the 2007 season after holding off determined attacks by Blake
Miller and Michael Spencer. Jones lead all but one lap, but was
passed by both Miller and Spencer who led a part of several laps.
Tony Jones in Alexander #4 qualifying.
Jones started the 30 lap feature on
the outside of the front row after a ninth fastest qualifying time.
Garrett Hansen was on the pole with Mike Spencer and Blake Miller in
row two. Hansen got the jump at the start and lead going into the
third turn before Jones got around him coming out of the fourth
turn. Hansen was falling back and was passed by Miller and Spencer
on the second lap. On the fourth lap a debris caution was called for
a nerf bar which had fallen off of Hansen's car.
The race was restarted and the battle between Jones and Miller
began. On lap five Miller was able to pull up beside Jones in one
and two. Jones was running on the top and was better in turns three
and four. On lap ten Miller was threatening to lead again.
On lap 12 the caution flag flew again. This time it was Seth Wilson
who made contact with the wall in turn four. It was only light
contact and Wilson was able to drive into the work area where a
steering tie rod was found broken.
Garrett Hanson's left rear tire was seen to have been very low
before the next restart when he was involved in the events most
serious accident. As the field went into the first turn Hansen and
Tyler Brown got together and Brown made one and a half flips before
hitting the first turn fence. Hansen stopped in the same turn with
both of his rear tires flattened. Brown was reported to be dis-orientated
and was removed from his car by the emergency crew who sent him to a
hospital for observation despite his protestations that he was 'OK'.
His car had taken a big hit on the left rear side of the roll cage.
RJ Johnson got off to a bad start when his car went under the push
truck.
The race resumed and after fighting
off a challenge from Spencer Miller went back to work making Tony
Jones life difficult. On lap 18 he got past Jones in turn one but
was re passed on turn four. On lap 23 the leaders started to
encounter lapped traffic and on lap 25 Jones bobbled in turn two and
Miller took the lead. Jones fought back and was pushing Blake when
Miller lost control in the first turn and flipped after hitting the
wall.
On the restart another accident happened. This time it involved
Jason York, Nadine Gardner and Matt Rossi with Gardner flipping on
the front straight. Troy Rutherford also was forced to change a tire
after this, so he might have been involved.
As the race resumed Jones and Spencer were the only ones fighting
for the lead. On lap 27 Spencer got around Jones in turn two but
Jones attacked and took it back in turn two. That seemed to have
awakened Jones and he finished the race without letting Spencer get
that close again.
The nights program had several other serious accidents. Nate Ziegler
flipped on the last lap of the B feature. On the second lap of the
fourth heat David Cardey had a left wheel depart his car and cause
him to flip. The race was being video taped for later broadcast and
the cameraman in the first turn was nearly hit by the wheel from the
car.
In the B feature Ross Millar got sideways and collected Nate Zeigler
and
Brian Williams
'Super' Rickie Gaunt was the fast
qualifier for the night at 16.677 seconds and he also was the winner
of the B feature, his fourth of the year. Scottie Weir, Rip
Williams, Tony Jones and Cory Kruseman were the heat winners. Thirty
two cars qualified.
The USAC/CRA series travels to Phoenix, Arizona to race at Manzanita
Speedway May 19th and returns to Perris on May 26th for the 40 lap
“Salute To Indy” race.
Tony Jones with Family and Michael Spencer and Danny Sheridan on
podium
TONY JONES- “You know what? I got
the best team out here! No offense to any other team. My guys, their
bad! I love'em to death! Mike Spencer, I knew he was going to run me
clean. If the 18 car got up there, he'd run me clean, so we had a
good race. I don't know what happened to Blake. He ran one heck of a
race. I don't know what happened. I know we never touched over there
so tough luck for him. I was hoping to run him for
thirty laps but I knew he'd be sticking his nose in there too. These
guys are going to be tough on me all year. But you know what? Happy
Mother's day baby!”
MICHAEL SPENCER- “We come home second here again, ah, like I said
we were right there with them at the end. We kept adjusting it on
the red flags and we got it the best it was all night right at the
end. I wish it was a 40 lapper or something like that. That would
have been pretty good.” “He's a great racer and a fun guy to
race with. We always race
each other really clean and I think he was a little tight there
after that last restart and kinda' bicycled down there. I knew I was
going to clear him and tried to let it carry all the way to the
cushion. Maybe I should have tried to come off the bottom, maybe
that would have been a little better.”
DANNY SHERIDAN- “Congratulations to Tony. He drove his butt off
tonight. Track was pretty wild. We got the car in turn one and I
think we got airborne a couple of times and got it back on the
ground.” “We went out there, we had a little too much stagger in
the car, so we were trying to compensate the entire night. The car
got in there a couple of times, got a little wild on us and I knew
Cory (Kruseman) was behind me a couple of
times and we were just trying to do as much as we could to keep him
behind us. When you start running this you got to get the
consistency. Last time we were here we had a little bone head
maneuver and put it in the fence, so when I got into about five laps
to go I knew we just had to bring it home on the podium. Off that
last red we made a pretty good
change on the race car and we had a good run on Spencer. I mean if
we bring it home on a third we can't complain. Hats off to Tony and
we'll go get'em again in Phoenix next week.”
Reports from Ed Hollowell are courtesy of Motor
Sports Forum http://www.motorsportsforum.com
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