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Ballou heads to Sin City By Gary Thomas |
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March 5, 2007... The "Rocklin Rocket" Robert Ballou heads to
Las Vegas, NV this weekend to do battle with the stars of the USAC/CRA Series in
a pair of races at the ultra fast Las Vegas Motor Speedway ½ mile dirt oval.
This weekend will be the first time that the wingless 410 USAC/CRA Series has
ever raced in the state of Nevada and will kick off the start of Robert’s
first full season driving a wingless sprinter. For the 2007 season Ballou Motorsports has teamed with MPHG Promotions, and has veteran tuner Jimmy Jones as the crew chief on the No. 81 sprinter to run the full USAC National Sprint Car Series schedule. It’ll be a big change for Robert who spent most of last season running on the tight and sticky bullrings in Northern California; but having Jones at his side will help him immensely in adapting to the new tracks. The USAC National tour is made up of both dirt and pavement races and the team will be running Maxim Chassis when competing on dirt and will utilize Beast Chassis when tackling pavement. We would like to give a big thanks to all our sponsors for the ‘07 season, which includes: Gardemeyer Finish Carpentry, THR & Son's, Gliko Hardware and Construction, Swimming Pool Perfections, Schlage, Circle Racing Wheels, Pro Shocks, Bell, Design 500, Maxim, Don Ott Racing Engines, Rod End Supply, JB Racing Components, BSA and A.R.T. Speed Equipment. Robert kicked off the season a couple weekends back at the Tulare Thunderbowl Raceway competing with the World of Outlaws Sprint Series. On Friday night he qualified 14th in a talent packed field of 42 sprint cars, finished second in his heat race and scored 20th in the feature. Saturday night saw Robert qualify 23rd quick, but with the Outlaws only inverting 16 in the heats now, it put Robert behind the inversion and behind the top qualifiers. He gave it a hard run but came home sixth, which put him in the B-main where he would charge forward early and dice it up around the transfer spot for much of the race, before coming home sixth and putting an end to the night two spots shy of transferring out. Ballou Motorsports is coming off of a great year that saw four wins, including a victory with the O’Reilly Sprint Bandits at I-80 Speedway in Nebraska, which was only Robert’s fourth start in a wingless sprint car. Robert also finished fourth in the competitive Golden State Challenge King of California 410 winged sprint car series point standings. The 17 year old won two races with GSC last season and in January he was named Golden State Challenge Series Rookie of the Year for 2006. Robert’s other win came at the Silver Dollar Speedway in Chico where he led all 25 laps to claim victory in a special Tuesday night 4th of July show. The event this weekend in Las Vegas will begin on Thursday night and finish up on Friday. A different qualifying format was announced recently for the event, which will include six cars being on the clock at the same time for four laps. Both night’s will be capped off with 30 lap features. The ‘07 season will be a great experience for Robert and he’ll give it his all, as he always does. To keep up with Robert Ballou visit http://www.balloumotorsports.com |
