| Saturday Show at Orlando SpeedWorld an Overwhelming Success | by Dave Westerman
They said it couldn't be done, but promoter Dick Westfall and his "skeleton" crew proved that a gathering of the State's best club racers makes for quite a show, and the fans that came out Saturday night were treated to some awesome racing action.
With 118 cars in the pits in seven divisions, Westfall admitted he was "overwhelmed" while being quite "understaffed." "We really didn't expect this thing to be such a success right out of the gate," said Westfall. " Right now I'm almost speechless. Obviously we didn't plan for this many cars, but the staff I had working here plus guys like Ricky Wood who stepped up and helped out on short notice did an excellent job. We'll be much better prepared next month," he said.
Warm but picture-perfect weather greeted the competitors and despite a few scary moments, action was keen throughout the evening.
Bandelero racing was split into two groups, Bandits and Young Guns, and there was action aplenty in each 12-lap feature.
Chad Atkins won the Bandits heat race, but spun out taking the green flag for the feature race and found himself at the back of the pack. Shortly after, Atkins would tangle with Blake Eden and have to retire his car with front end damage. Josh Williams grabbed the lead as it seemed nobody wanted to run second.
First, Derrick Wood spun while trying to get under Williams, then Matthew Jarrett also looped his car trying to gather in the lead.
Gerald White, Jr., who had also spun earlier in the race while running fourth, came up to second late in the going, and when Williams bobbled coming out of turn four on the final lap, sped by to take the win leading only the last 30 yards of the race.
Williams recovered for second followed by Jarrett and Eric Salvesen, the only cars still running. Wood was credited with fifth.
The young guns feature was tame by comparison as it went green to checker with heat winner Brandon Thomson leading every lap and winning by a large margin. Scott Jarrett backed up his first career win the night before by taking home the second place trophy followed by Jessica Murphy, Dalton Zehr and Blake Deeks.
There were plenty of scary moments for the Modified Lite drivers starting with a bad crash in heat one. Something happened to Kenny Anderson's car going into turn three and Todd Hart found himself with nowhere to go. Hart ran over Anderson's mount and flipped high in the air, landing hard on the race surface. After a few tense moments, Hart climbed out groggy but unhurt worried more about the condition of his car and what his wife was going to say when he got home.
Twenty-five Mod Lites signed in requiring three heat races which were won by Ron Towles, Mike Belusar, and Phil Krauthoff who had the new "dirt" style body on his machine.
Towles grabbed the lead early in the scheduled 25 lap feature, but this one would see it's share of wild action starting ten laps in as John Burchinal spun in turn three. Mel Godwin, running hard in fifth position, got too high in the "loose stuff" and slid into Burchinal's stalled car. Neither driver was hurt and only minor damage resulted.
Just after the restart there was yet another turn three altercation, this time involving no less than six cars, three of which were done for the evening.
Once the green came back out, Towles had his hands full with Bill Burback who was trying every trick in the book to unseat the leader.
On lap 14, turn three reared its ugly head again as Mike Landis and Max Howe tangled with Howe taking a hard lick into the wall. Although Howe was seeing a few more stars than were actually in the sky, both he and Landis were OK physically, but bruised up pretty good in the wallet.
Due to fuel concerns, the race went green-white-checker and Towles held off Burback for the win. Belusar came home third just in front of Stan Hope and John Godwin.
The Mini Cup cars were out in force with heat race wins going to Brian Etty's "Babywrench" special and Doug Smith.
Smith would get the jump on the field as the action behind him was unbelievable. You just knew something was going to happen and it did on lap six. Several cars got out of shape coming out of turn two with both Calvin Lewis and Phil Amerson slamming hard into the backstretch wall.
Trackside EMT's immediately went to work on Amerson who was complaining of pain in his knees and neck while Orange County Fire-Rescue was called to the track.
Although conscious and alert, Amerson, himself a firefighter/paramedic, was cut from his car so as not to risk further injury. Amerson was transported to a local hospital and reported later to be in stable condition.
When the race resumed it was all Doug Smith as he led all the way to claim the win. The second place battle was a crowd pleaser as Terry Tullis, who started 16th in a car painted like Dale Earnhardt, Jr.'s Winston Cup car, battled with Etty in his machine, a black #3 Dale Earnhart, Sr. look-a-like.
Tullis took second from Etty on lap eight, but could not chase down Smith. Etty held on for third followed by Don Saxon and Mike Sweet.
Tony Carrigg led all the way in topping the Florida TQ Late Model feature. David Rader took second from heat race winner Derrick Suites on lap nine while Suites held on for third over Terry Dugger and Darryl Graves.
The Pro Challenge field wasn't huge, but it was incredibly competitive as the entire field finished within a straightaway of each other, many missing pieces of bodywork knocked off during the close racing action.
Only a harmless spin by Dale Horne slowed the field as Mark David put his car out front at the drop of the green and staved off numerous challengers for the win.
Brothers Brad and Rod Sanders worked up to second and third late in the going but couldn't unseat David. Marty Zehr and Mike Lago trailed in fourth and fifth.
Despite a large field, the Legends cars surprisingly ran their feature event green to checker after suffering through a crashfest the night before here.
Patrick Conrad was the class of the field as he ran off and hid, working lapped traffic to perfection. Jordan Richardson came home second with Jason Reisman, Ray Sasser and Bruce Sasser rounding out the top five.
The only class running V-8 powerplants on this night was the Classic Auto Racing Series and they came out in force with 20 cars making the call for the feature.
Heat winners Jim Rahman and Ben Booth immediately pulled out to a healthy advantage and ran that way to the checker.
Despite some bumper-bending action, only one caution was needed for Greg Helton's spin near the midway point of the race. Patrick Sanders got his best finish of the year with third while Wayne Ashton and Al Hagan completed the top five.
The next Speedworld Saturday Night Special is slated for June 7th.
RESULTS - ORLANDO SPEEDWORLD - 5/3/03:
BANDELERO BANDITS:
1) Gerald White, Jr. #38
2) Josh Williams #6
3) Matthew Jarrett #9
4) Eric Salvesen #74
5) Derrick Wood #33
6) Blake Eden #17
7) Spenser Taylor #15
8) Chad Atkins #60
BANDELERO YOUNG GUNS:
1) Brandon Thomson #54
2) Scott Jarrett #97
3) Jessica Murphy #40
4) Dalton Zehr #63
5) Blake Deeks #26
6) Chelsea Schillig #75
7) Troy Adkins #14
8) Kevin Henry #7
MODIFIED LITES:
1) Ron Towles #01
2) Bill Burback #77
3) Mike Belusar #82
4) Stan Hope #8
5) John Godwin #00
6) Nick Shadid #68
7) Dan Berry #44
8) Wayne DeClerck #96
9) Robert Crandoll #33
10) Todd Diers #40
11) Rick McFarland #49
12) Ed Powell #71
13) John Sproul #72
14) Jim Biglin #07FL
15) Mike Landis #20
16) Max Howe #50
17) Phil Krauthoff #2
18) Zane Davis #74
19) Doug Parlamento #3
20) Bill Molenaar #0
21) Mel Godwin #22
22) John Burchinal #48
DNS Kenny Anderson #15
DNS Todd Hart #07
DNS George Landis #5
PRO CHALLENGE:
1) Mark David #24
2) Brad Sanders #12
3) Rod Sanders #1
4) Marty Zehr #8
5) Mike Lago #25
6) Tyler David #28
7) Kyle Nicholas #2
8) Howard Brennan #56
9) Dale Horne #20
10) Dalton Zehr #4
TQ LATE MODELS:
1) Tony Carrigg #87
2) David Rader #6
3) Derrick Suites #1
4) Terry Dugger #28
5) Darryl Graves #8
6) Mike Carrigg #22
7) James Hughes #99
8) Rick Stone #1X
9) Scott Hughes #9
MINI-CUP:
1) Doug Smith #17
2) Terry Tullis #8
3) Brian Etty #3
4) Don Saxon #44
5) Mike Sweet #12
6) Rich Crisafulli #00
7) Terry Lee Tullis #56
8) Wendy Kash #05
9) Carlos Gonzales #19
10) Richard Auriemma #21
11) Dan Suggs #29
12) Mike Holt #36
13) Sonny Saxon #55
14) Caesar Bacarella #24X
15) Calvin Lewis #2
16) Phil Amerson #24
17) David Taylor #15
DNS Heather Suggs #34
LEGENDS:
1) Patrick Conrad #2
2) Jordan Richardson #00
3) Jason Reisman #25
4) Ray Sasser #8
5) Bruce Sasser #23
6) Jeff Johnson #99
7) Kevin Abbott #98
8) Jeremy Colangelo #05
9) Sam Watts #73
10) Doc Richardson #0
11) Wesley McLeod #22
12) Nick Keeling #15
13) Mike Verhaagh #7
14) Brett Montgomery #64
15) Jarrad Cawley #31
16) Bob Wilson #27
17) Kenny Wyatt #6
18) Tim Burr #22X
19) Greg Montgomery #88
20) Mitch Verhaagh #9
CLASSIC CARS:
1) Jim Rahman #5
2) Ben Booth #12
3) Patrick Sanders #8
4) Wayne Ashton #78
5) Al Hagan #6
6) Ed Yates #74
7) David Marsh #711
8) Joey Strehle #42
9) Simeon Spagnuolo #21
10) Bud Spencer #7
11) Daryl Grief #1
12) Bill Posey #00
13) E.B. Carr #90
14) George Hall, Jr. #32
15) Frank Conrad #11
16) Greg Helton #3
17) George Hall III #9
18) Ray Frazee #43
19) Eddie Ward #45
20) Randy Grief #88
DNS James Strehle #X11
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