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Traditional Sprint Car FanSite |
See You At The Races!!! |
| KINGS SPEEDWAY OFFERS SPRINT
CAR BUFFET by Norm Bogan |
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It was kind of like taking the family to the
“all you can eat buffet” as sprint car aficionados were treated
to seventy sprinters in the pits.
The flavors were both traditional and winged with many
varieties like Bandits, Rebels and Civil War versions.
Old standbys like Brent Kaeding, Ronnie Day, Rick Williams
and Jim Richardson would vie with youngsters, who had to complete
their high school homework, before their Mom would let them play
with the racecar. Promoter Dave Swindell met with the Weather
Gods and came to an understanding that a cooler, pleasant evening
would attract a much larger crowd, plus ease the strain on the track
preparation crew. Dave
must be living right, because the weather was near perfect. With
temperatures predicted to be in the mid 90s during the day, cooling
to seventies at night, it was a pleasant afternoon in the low
eighties with a gentle breeze that greeted the contestants at the
pit gate. About
sundown, most of the fans had donned a jacket or sweatshirt, and the
wind was non-existent. The track progressed from a smooth tacky
surface at hot laps to a fairly quick composition during qualifying
of the seventy contestants. As
the heat races and semi-features staged the track remained smooth
and retained some moisture for a fast track.
By time for the two Main Events, the surface was hard and
smooth, but not dry or dusty, a tribute to those who performed the
tedious preparation early in the day to withstand the assault of the
wide-tired, fire breathing warriors during the evening. While tonight’s competitors are quite similar, they do have unique differences. The Bandits are traditional sprint cars, utilizing a 360 cu. in. engine and mostly racing at Kings Speedway and Santa Maria Speedway. Their counterpart is the Rebel sprint cars, which have subtle hardware mounted encompassing both a top wing and nose wing, offering additional down force, which allows the racecar to be driven into the corner at near full speed, while a Bandit car will brake and pitch the car into the corner and then power it off the apex of the turn. The Civil War cars are much the same as the Rebel cars, only they campaign at a number of northern California tracks. While the chassis and power plants are identical among all three classes, the added wings and accompanying chassis adjustments make the cars much faster, with lap time differences of about 2.5 seconds or 15 mph. One of the fun things about these outings is
a chance to review the up and coming talent.
Each year, the new drivers seem to be getting younger and
better. Remember when a
driver had to be twenty-one to race and now we have more and more
sixteen year olds battling with the veterans.
Racing with the Bandits tonight was sixteen-year old Chad
Boespflug, who claimed his first feature victory just a few weeks
ago. Competing in the
winged races were two more sixteen-year olds, Robert Ballou and Jeff
Delte, along with another young driver sporting a familiar name,
Chuck Gurney Jr. or “Little Rim”. As the evening played out, Heat Races were
run, followed by Semi Main Events and finally the racers were
gridded in eleven rows for each of the features.
The Bandit feature would be a twenty-five-lap shootout.
Rick Williams moved to the lead and was dogged by Chad
Boespflug for many laps. On the final lap, Chad scooted past the
veteran Williams to add to his season victory total.
Recently crowned Santa Maria Sprint Champ, Davey Pombo,
completed the podium trio. Ronnie Day had a hectic night, getting
collected in his heat race and taken to the work area for repairs. He was able to get back on track, tag the field and advance
to sixth, not transferring. After
the crew made more thorough checks and adjustments to the car,
Ronnie was sent out for the Semi and promptly won, allowing him to
start on the third row of the thirty-lap winged feature, which he
parlayed to the victory. Day
credited his team with hard work to get his car back for action
after the altercation. “Little
Rim” came home second followed by Garrett Ishii. At the end of the evening, the fans had stood in the serving line and had their plates filled with great sprint car racing. It was truly a feast to be enjoyed by all. Kudos also to track announcer, Sean Buckley who did an excellent job of keeping the fans informed on each of the cars and also performing the post race interviews. Nice job, Dynamite! |
