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| Press Release |
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Herrera and Reid Take Sweeps at
Hollywood Hills Speedway |
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7-19-2008 --- Hollywood Hills Speedway @ Casino Hollywood, San Felipe Pueblo,
New Mexico. For the second week in a row Hollywood Hills Speedway dodged a huge
weather bullet. In spite of heavy rain that had water running over the curbs in
Albuquerque and torrential rain that limited visibility to a few feet on the
Interstate just a few miles from the Speedway, a very nice crowd of enthusiastic
fans were on hand to see 89 cars compete in 5 divisions. Ex World of Outlaws
driver Johnny Herrera again handily won both his heat race and the 25 lap Main
Event. Unlike Herrera, current Modified points leader Butch Reid waited until
after the white flag in both his heat race and the 25 lap Main Event to take the
lead and the win. If you are only going to lead less than a lap it certainly
pays off to make it the last lap. Joining the regularly scheduled Sprints,
Modifieds, Street Stocks and Mini-Sprints on the program tonight was a nice
field of 16 Dwarf cars making their first appearance at HHS. Joining the 5 N.M.
drivers were 4 drivers from Arizona and 7 from Colorado. These small cars put on
some very good races and are looking forward to returning to HHS on August 2nd.
The Non-Winged Sprint cars had a nice field of 23 cars to run 3 heat races and a 25 lap main event. There were no yellow flags in any of the heat races even though the track was still a tad bit slippery from the rain earlier in the evening. However there was one red flag in the 3rd heat as last years champion, Bo Baker in the #61X took a relatively minor tumble going into turn one. Baker was able to make repairs to his ride and start and finish the main event. Heat #1 had the #45X of Johnny Herrera take the win over a very hard charging Randy Smith in the #26 with the #78 of Jody Williams coming home in the 3rd position. Heat #2 saw teenage rookie driver Cody Mansfield in the #4X take a close win over the #11W of Tim West with another teenage rookie driver Jordan Mattson in the #24 taking 3rd place. Heat #3 was probably the closest of the heat races but ended with only 4 of the 7 starters still around at the checkered flag. At about the midway point the #61X of Baker tangled with 2 or 3 other cars and did a couple of flips collecting the unfortunate car of #40X Scott Box along the way, ending the race for both drivers. In the end the win went to the #22M of Jesse Baker with the #9 of Minneola Texas driver Billy Page taking the 2nd spot and the #8 of J.C. Powell coming home a very close 3rd. The Main Event a great early battle between the father and son duo of Randy Smith (dad) and Ronnie Smith fighting for the lead. Ronnie was in the #16 car of track director Tom Ball for tonights racing. There was a large group of drivers fighting for position close behind the Smith tandem. Most notably among this group was the #45X of Johnny Herrera making his move toward the front from his 11th starting spot. Herrera steadily picked of the competitors one by one and finally got by the Smiths. Once in the lead Herrera pulled out to a half lap victory at the checkered flag. Chasing Herrera to the stripe were the #26 of Randy Smith, #11W Tim West, #9 Billy Page and the #16 of Ronnie Smith filling out the top five spots. The Modifieds had the largest field of the night with 25 cars on hand to run
3 heat races and their 25 lap Main Event. Even though the Mods took to the track
after only one Street Stock heat had run these guys did a great job on a VERY
slippery track. Heat #1 saw the #88J of Mark McClarran come from his 5th
starting spot take the win over the #151 of Russell Harvey who was making his
first start of the year at HHS, not too bad a way to start the year. Following
McClarran and Harvey to the finish was the #25 of Bo Martinez. Heat #2 had a
race long battle among the top four cars running side by side and at times 3
wide, lap after lap. At the stripe it was the #2M of Richard Johnson who is
currently in second place in the Modified point chase followed by the #3J of
Josh Cain and the #7R of Steven Bertetto. Bertetto is about 12 feet tall (well
maybe 610) and wears a size 20 shoe. This youngster almost literally needs
to be put into his car with a shoe horn ( a very large shoe horn at that). Heat
#3 was a thriller from the git-go with the battle for the top spot among the top
6 or the 8 drivers in the race. Shawn Dutcher in the #54 fought off challenge
after challenge from the group of drivers behind trying to rest the victory from
him. Going into turn one after the white flag the #5 of Butch Reid was able to
make the pass on Dutcher and take the hard fought win with Dutcher coming home
2nd and the #68 of Kenny Wheeler taking home the show position. The 25 lap Main
Event again was a heart breaker for the #25 of Bo Martinez. Martinez has led the
Main several times this year only to have disaster strike late in the race.
After jumping out to the early lead and moving away from the field, Martinez was
putting a lap on the #1G of Mychal Lucero when the Lucero car slide up the track
and locked wheels with Martinez bring both cars to a stop between turns 3&4.
Once the cars were separated the car of Martinez suffered a flat tire ending his
evening. Once the racing resumed there was a great battle from 1st through about
12th place with no more than a few feet between any of these drivers. As in the
heat race the #5 of Butch Reid was dicing high and low to pick up a spot here
and there. The cars got 3 wide down the backstretch heading for the checkered
flag with Reid making his move on the inside to take the lead coming out of the
last turn to take his second win of the night with the #3J of Josh Cain, #88J
Mark McClarran, #00 J.R. Bonesteel and the #77X of Colt Treharn filling out the
top five positions. Treharn has been running a limited Modified schedule this
year as he is running full time with the ASCS Rock Mountain Winged Sprint group
and is currently in 3rd place in that groups standings. The Dwarf cars made their first appearance at HHS this year with a nice field of 17 cars from 3 states on hand. These small cars with old style Sportsman type bodies and running motorcycle engines put on some very interesting races. Heat #1 saw the #66 of Dwarf group president David Hand from Los Alamos N.M. take the win over the #U7 of Sanford Colorados Brock Bagwell with the #X1 of La Jara Colorados J.C. Gilliland taking 3rd. Heat #2 had the #17 of another La Jara driver Ryan Gilliland take the win over the #10X of Flagstaff Arizona driver Helen Hennesey nipping at his heals in second place and the #78 of Florence Arizonas Jerry Martzall not far behind in the 3rd spot. Heat #3 had another member of the Hennesey family from Flagstaff, the #12 of Pat Hennesey take the win over the #11 of yet another Hennesey, Heather with the #42 of Ken Johnson from La Jara Colorado filling out the top three spots. The 20 lap Main Event saw the very fast front runners put a couple of cars several laps down. In the end the #66 of David Hand took a comfortable win over the #17 of Ryan Gilliland, #42 Ken Johnson, #10 Pat Hand and the #X1 of J.C. Gilliland filling out the top five positions. The Mini-Sprints had 16 cars to run 2 heat races and a 20 lap Main Event. Heat #1 saw the #23W of Adam Mollenkopf take the win over the #2 of David Gay and the #17 of long tow driver D.J. Snyder of Pagosa Springs Colorado coming home in the 3rd spot. This was a good win for Mollenkopf who had rolled his mount the last time he ran at HHS. Heat #2 saw the return of the #74X of Joshua (the Jet) Hodges take the win from his last row starting spot. Chasing Hodges to the line were the #7H of Jory Higginbotham and the #9X of Eric Smith. Both Higginbotham and Smith have both been coming on strong the last couple of times out. The Main Event again saw Hodges come from his last row start to take the lead and the win by over a half lap over the #9X of Smith with the #23W of Mollenkopf, #7H Higginbotham and the #00 of Bloomfield N.M. driver Al Cordova filling out the top five positions. Young Hodges has been racing in the Mid-West recently and his experience against large fields of very talented drivers was very apparent tonight. Be sure to come out next Saturday when the Modifieds will be joined by the Late Models, Hobby Stocks and the Cruisers. Also next week HHS will be hosting the Old-Timers reunion for drivers who ran in the Albuquerque area prior to 1981. Right now there are over 160 drivers and guest from around the country registered to attend this event. Along with the Old-Timers will be some of the old Sportsman and Super-Modifieds from that time era on display just west of the main Casino facility. Have A Great Day Sprints Modifieds Street Stock Dwarf Cars Mini-Sprints
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