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Traditional Sprint Car FanSite |
See You At The Races!!! |
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COWS,
CROPS AND AUTO RACING by Norm Bogan |
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The journey began on Saturday morning with a
jaunt of 160 miles to Dairy land, USA, otherwise known as Kings and
Tulare counties. As the
urban sprawl continued to push the dairy farmers farther away from
southern California, many migrated north to the lush Central Valley
to join their brother dairymen. Throughout the region are spotted small
facilities servicing a couple of thousand head of milk cows.
Surrounding each of these dairies are acres of alfalfa and
corn supplying feed for the herd.
The industrial base in the area caters to the dairies,
offering equipment, parts and service to keep the facilities up and
running along with processing plants to bottle the milk or convert
it to butter, cheese and ice cream. In the evening after the chores are
accomplished, you may find a few of these farmers toiling away in a
barn on some class of racing vehicle.
Come Saturday afternoon, these racers will be queued up and
ready to go at the Kings Speedway pit gate for a night of action on
the dirt. There are
strong family ties in this community, so when Cousin Johnny goes
racing, a number of the relatives are in the stands offering
support. Saturday, August 25th, was one of
those nights. Four
classes were in action, with most of the competition originating
from nearby surrounding communities.
On hand were twenty-two BCRA Midgets, twenty-two IMCA
Modifieds, nineteen East-West Super Stocks and twenty-four SCRA 360
Wingless Sprint Cars. All
but the Modifieds qualified for position and the lineup would be
determined for heat races in each division. The heat race results set the grid for the
features in each class. After
that, each racer must decide how hard and where to race on the oval
to achieve the best finish. Probably
the most exciting race of the evening was the second Super Stock
heat race. Lee Jensen
and Lonnie Welch raced side-by-side for a number of laps, dicing
back and forth for the lead and runner-up positions.
Competition like this is what excites the fans and keeps them
coming back and if one of those racers in the dice is their hero,
they are ecstatic. Kings Speedway is a tricky track at times. With no walls in the corners, often a racer will run into the turn a little too hard and is next seen tippy-toeing over the berm, trying to keep from spinning out and hoping to get back in line before the whole field passes. This is kind of like the “Hare and Tortoise Syndrome” as the young bucks bore full throttle into the corner, only to go up and over the top, while the wily veteran motors by. While temperatures were above the century mark
as the race teams arrived, the heat competed with the water truck.
As the evening wore on, the racing surface became dry-slick,
which was preferred by many racers, while others searched the inside
berm or right along the top of the banking, where hidden moisture
might propel them forward. As the sun sank into the West, a cool breeze
brought welcome relief to the fans and helped to maintain the track,
without a build up of ruts. The
IMCA Modifieds found the top three in tonight’s feature to be Alex
Stanford, Bryan Burns and Robby Jeppesen.
In the BCRA Midgets, Ryan Kaplan prevailed over Michael
Faccinto, doing double duty tonight and John Sarale.
The East West Super Stocks saw Tim Randolph score ahead of
Lonnie Welch and Roy Duncan. Finally
in the SCRA Sprint Car feature, Michael Faccinto came back with a
better finishing position than his earlier midget event.
Chasing this youngster to the checkers was Davey Pombo and
Danny Faria. While the show ran a little late with four divisions, fans and racers still returned home in time for a nap before milking time!! |
