August 22, 2004 Mother Nature Finally Cooperates With East Bay Raceway Park By John Berti -KARNAC.com Donnie Tanner jumped back into points lead with Late Model Win. GIBSONTON, FL - Cooperation from Mother Nature, for a change, enabled a full race card of racing to go into the recordbooks Saturday night at East Bay Raceway Park. Twenty two late model competitors signed up in the pits all hoping to go home with the $1,500 up for grabs for the winner of the feature race. The increased purse even drew Jeff Choquette to make the trek from West Palm Beach to "The Bay". Twenty cars made up the starting field and in the end it was "The Master" Donnie Tanner getting the better of the teenage phenom, Choquette, as Tanner got the win with Choquette taking runnerup honors. David Schmauss, Keith Nosbisch and Jack Nosbisch, Jr rounding out the top five. Tanner's win vaulted him back into the points lead in a tightly contested battled for the title with Schmauss. Greg Reutimann, was able to take advantage of a break in the NCTS schedule to compete in the open wheel modified feature. Reutimann started eighth on the starting grid but could only work his way up to second before the checkered flag waved with the win going to David Schmauss. Bill Howard was third, Jeff Matthews fourth and John Bradley fifth. Rich Alexander took the checkers at the completion of the limited sprint feature, but was DQ'd in a post race tech inspection. That moved everyone up one spot giving the win to Tim Holston followed by Greg Leonard, Tyler Godwin, Brian Maddox and Larry Brazil, Jr. The limited late models ran two features on the night. In the first it was Bruce Harvey nailing down the win over Richard Kessinger, Pete Grantham, Shane Koperda and Robert Douglas. Kessinger bounced back for the win in the second feature with Jason Bronson, Ricky Land, Keith Simpson and J.R. Prather Jr., who came back from flipover, making up the top five. Jim Courson took the win in the mini stock feature. Chad Rose completed a skillful run from a ten place starting position to take runnerup honors, Willard Dailey was third, Cecil Martin fourth and Kenny Rutledge fifth. The street stock feature win went to Thomas White over Mike Cherry, Danny Paris, Tim Spencer and Buck Woodhouse. There will be no stock car racing at East Bay on August 28th due to a two day national karting event. Have an opinion on this story? Post a message on our Message Board! <news@karnac.org>or send a letter to the editor!