IT'S TIME TO RACE!!

February 9, 2004 FSCR TBARA Winged Sprints Light Up Citrus County By Curtis Whalin After the quiet winter months, Saturday Feb 7th marked a welcome return to the 2004 TBARA Winged sprint car series. The TBARA arrived at Citrus County Speedway to launch their season with 33 cars present at the track. This gave us a racing schedule for the night of three heat races of 8 laps each, a 12 lap B main feature race and a 25 lap A main feature event. Each car pulled pills to decide the race order for the heats, and the first heat saw the return of Joey Aguilar in the 96 car on the pole, alongside Gary Gimmler in the 29. At turns 3 & 4 on the first lap, contact between Lee Cipray in the 33 and David Slawiak in the 79 saw the 33 spin, the 79 come to a stop with a broken front axle and the 33c of John Sambor, who had been running behind the 79 come to a stop with his front bumper resting on the rear bumper of the broken 79. The 33 and the 79 were retired from the heat, along with Bill Pettijohn in the 6F who was experiencing mechanical problems with the car. The second complete restart got as far as turn 1 where the 29 of Gary Gimmler and Dude Teate in the 68 got turned around after contact between one of them and another car caused them to spin. During the caution, Stan Butler in the 118 went off to the pits with a broken shock. The race got back underway with the third start and saw Joey Aguilar in the 96 lead from start to finish, with 2003 driver champion Dude Teate taking second place. After the checkered flag, Nick Manikis in the 8 car stopped on the front straightway with a small fire under his car, which was quickly extinguished and he was pushed off the track. The second heat put Frank Scimeca in the 98 in the pole position for the start of the race, with Wayne Reutimann Jr taking the other slot on the front row. A clean start to the race saw the 00 take the lead. On lap 5, Ben Fritz in the 16 rolled to a stop on the high side of turn 1. When the safety crew went to check on him and push him off, he also had a small fire in the car. That fire was also quickly extinguished and he was pushed off the track. The race got back underway and Wayne Reutimann Jr in the 00 went on to take the checkered flag, with the 66 of Ray Bragg taking second. Doug Heveron, who had been running in 5th place took a spin through the infield on the last lap, narrowly missing the push trucks and pace car, and ended the race in 10th position. The third and final heat put Hank Lower in the 37 in the pole seat, alongside the long awaited return of Matt Mercer on the number 10. Matt got off to a flying start and took the race lead. On lap 3, Scott Adema retired his number 2 car to the infield with mechanical problems and he was joined on lap 5 by Troy Declaire in the number 6. Current TBARA owner champion Keith Butler who had started in 4th position caught up to lead car Matt Mercer and took the lead on the last lap, wining the race and leaving Matt with a close second place finish. The top 6 cars from each heat made the automatic lock-in to the A main feature race. The remaining 15 cars were left to battle it out for the remaining A race slots by racing in the B main feature. The top 6 finishers from this race would make the transfer to run in the A main feature race. Scott Adema in the 2 car and Ben Fritz in the 16 car announced that they would not run in the B main race due to mechanical issues, and a change of driver in the 33 car from Lee Cipray to Paul Madden put that car to the back of the B main line up. The remaining cars were lined up according to their heat finishing positions, with the 7th place finisher from the first heat, Nick Manikis in the 8 taking the pole, heat two 7th place finisher Frank Scimeca taking second starting place, third heat 7th place finisher Mark Gimmler in the 51 taking third place, heat one 8th place finisher taking 4th, etc. As the cars ran their pre-race warm up laps, Mark Gimmler’s 51 car appeared to be dripping oil from the headers and he was retired to the infield. The 98 of Frank Scimeca also stopped before the start of the race, but he was able to be restarted and he joined the race. The 7 car of John Gilbert Jr went off on lap 1, causing a full restart, which got away cleanly with David Slawiak in the 79 taking the lead from a 4th place starting position, having moved up from 6th place when the 98 caused a caution to be thrown and was put to the back of the field on the restart. Doug Heveron in the 22 car was able to take the lead from David Slawiak on lap 5, and on lap 6, a spin by Nick Manikis in the 8 brought out the caution flag again, squashing an attempt by David Slawiak to retake the race lead. The race got back underway and the 8 car retired to the infield on lap 8. The remaining laps were run without further incidence, with the 22, 118, 6, 79, 96X and 03 cars making the transfer to the A main feature race after finishing in that order. The top 4 cars from each heat race pulled pills to get their starting positions for the A main feature race. The next 6 cars were lined up according to their heat finishing positions, as these were the 5th and 6th place heat finishers, similar to the B main feature line up procedure, and the last 6 cars were lined up in the order in which they finished the B main feature. The pill pull put Kevin Feeney in the 98F on the pole, with Joey Aguilar in the 96 alongside making up the front row. Joe Rebman in the 77 car spun on the first lap, bringing out the caution flag and a complete restart. The second start got away cleanly, with the 98F taking the lead. On lap 6, the 29 car of Gary Gimmler retired to the infield with brake problems. On lap 8, Wayne Reutimann Jr who had started in 5th position, took the race lead from Kevin Feeney in the 98F. Doug Heveron in the 22 car spun on lap12, giving himself a flat tire and a race retirement to the pits. He was joined later in the race by Dave Pletcher in the X car and then finally by Joey Aguilar in the 96 car. The exit of the 96 car brought out the caution flag while the race officials checked that the car had cleared the track exit lane to the pits. The feature got back underway without further incident, and the first TBARA feature winner of the 2004 season is Wayne Reutimann Jr in the 00 car. Wayne Jr also gets the Barfield Clean Sweep award for winning both his heat and the feature. 2003 driver champion Dude Teate took second place, with Wayne Reutimann Sr in the 99 in third. Kevin Feeney in the 98F came in 4th position, but was later disqualified for failure to take the car straight to the tech area after exiting the track after the race. Fourth position therefore goes to David Steele in the 91 car and fifth goes to Danny Martin Jr in the 00M. The TBARA race again on Sunday Feb 8 and Monday Feb 9, both nights at New Smyrna Speedway, and Feb 14 at Desoto. TBARA RESULTS: Citrus Country Speedway, February 7, 2004 HEAT 1 1) 96 Joey Aguilar 2) 68 Dude Teate 3) 98F Kevin Feeney 4) 00M Danny Martin Jr 5) 29 Gary Gimmler 6) 33c John Sambor 7) 8 Nick Manikis 8) 33 Lee Cipray DNF 9) 79 David Slawiak DNF 10) 118 Stan Butler DNF 11) 6F Bill Pettijohn DNF HEAT 2 1) 00 Wayne Reutimann Jr 2) 66 RAY Bragg 3) 99 Wayne Reutimann Sr 4) 1R Doug Berryman 5) 18 Shane Butler 6) X Dave Pletcher 7) 98 Frank Scimeca 8) 7 John Gilbert Jr 9) 47 Richard Waddell 10) 22 Doug Heveron DNF 11) 16 Ben Fritz DNF HEAT 3 1) 19 Keith Butler 2) 10 Matt Mercer 3) 91 David Steele 4) 37 Hank Lower 5) 80 Wendy Mathis 6) 77 Joe Rebman 7) 51 Mark Gimmler 8) 03 Tommy Nichols 9) 6 Troy Declaire DNF 10) 2 Scott Adema DNF 11) 96x Bo Hartley DNS B MAIN 1) 22 Doug Heveron; 2) 118 Stan Butler; 3) 6 Troy Declaire; 4) 79 David Slawiak; 5) 96X Bo Hartley; 6) 03 Tommy Nichols; 7) 33 Paul Madden (driver change); 8) 47 Richard Waddell; 9) 98 Frank Scimeca; 10) 6F Bill Pettijohn; 11) 7 John Gilbert Jr; 12) 8 Nick Manikis; 13) 51 Mark Gimmler. The 2 Scott Adema and the 16 Ben Fritz did not start the B-Main. FEATURE 1) 00 Wayne Reutimann Jr; 2) 68 Dude Teate; 3) 99 Wayne Reutimann Sr; 4) 91 David Steele; 5)00M Danny Martin Jr; 6) 18 Shane Butler; 7) 66 Ray Bragg; 8) 9 Keith Butler; 9) 10 Matt Mercer ; 10) 118 Stan Butler; 11) 79 David Slawiak; 12) 1R Doug Berryman; 13) 80 Wendy Mathis; 14) 37 Hank Lower; 15) 6 Troy Declaire; 16) 33c John Sambor; 17) 77 Joe Rebman; 18) 96X Bo Hartley; 19) 03 Tommy Nichols; 20) 96 Joey Aguilar DNF; 21)X Dave Pletcher DNF; 22) 22 Doug Heveron DNF; 23) 29 Mark Gimmler DNF; 24) 98F Kevin Feeney DQ for failure to go to tech area Have an opinion on this story? Post a message on our Message Board! news@karnac.org or send a letter to the editor!