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May 22, 1999 by Rick Anges DOWN AND "DIRT"Y
As it said in the program from EastBay Saturday night: "The track conditions were terrible last Saturday night." Seems the rainstorm that went over the speedway last Saturday was a soaker that went down to the underlying clay causing much havoc with track conditions. But as we all know the show must go on and the decision was made to race. Some people complained
that it should have been called and even the track managers are questioning
their own decision to run but they did and an evening of racing was done with
no one hurt.
Even if it had been decided to call the show there would have
been just as many upset people just going to prove you can't please all the
people as hard as you try, you live.....and you learn. The staff and crew at
EastBay are one of the finest around and do a tremendous job to keep that ol'
dirt track going, so my hats off to them.
The racing was typical dirt track fashion Saturday night with fans coming from as far as South Dakota to watch the action , even 98 Rock Morning Man "Bubba the Love Sponge " was there to run the "Big Jim Santjer" 98 rock late model to add to the evening's excitement. And exciting it was...........
The night started with the Latemodels coming out for the 4
lap $500 dash for cash. #01 Larry Vires drew the pill for the pole position
with #02 Keith Nosbich grabbing the 2nd spot #88 Donnie Tanner started 3rd
and #95 Steve Mathis 4th. When the green flag dropped it was Nosbich jumping
out and taking charge leaving the other three places to battle amongst
themselves. Some great driving insued with a nasty rut developing in between
turns 3 and 4 causing the cars to bounce hard in the groove. Nosbich came
home with the checkers and $500 Viles 2nd,Mathis 3rd and Tanner bringing up
the rear.
Next up the Wild Limited latemodels took the track with the #52 of
Kenny Blackmon jumping into the lead and keeping it through the caution
filled event. The #33 of Jeff Mathews made some good moves coming from near
the rear of the field to come in with 4th place finish even with a tire going
down. 2nd went to the #26 of Ike Walker,3rd to #27 John Bradley with #06 of
Jim Schwarz rounding out the top five in the shortened feature.
Sport Allen in the x42 car drove to his 11th feature win in the Winged
sprint division starting 7th he masterfully moved the field and avoiding the
bad rut in 3 and 4 that took out a few cars. The #8m of Ernie Teed took the
early lead and was classing the field when mechanical troubles ended his
evening early. The 1A of Robbie Smith slammed the wall hard but managed a 3rd place finish even though he broke the rear suspension that he showed me later in the pits that made the whole rear end move every time he went into the
turns making for one wild ride. Also a disappointing night for the #22 of
Mike Senecal who appeared to be cruising to an easy 4th place when slowed on the back stretch and pulled it into the infield. When the dirt settled it was
Allen taking home his 11th trophy this year, #88 Joe Melnick 2nd, 1a Robbie
Smith with a tremendous job 3rd, and 42t of Johnny Gilbertson 4th.
Where ever you go there are always the street stocks,the heart
and soul of any track. And here at Eastbay these guys sure know how to keep
you on the edge of your seat. Going into turn 2 the battle in mid-pack was 4
wide when the #03 of Dennis Lewis took a wild ride and ended up on his roof.
Hats off to the excellent safety crew from EastBay who were right on it and
had the driver out and stabilized in minutes. After righting the car and
clean up the racing resumed. Banging scraping and all out racing the field
bunched up, point leader 22 Danny McCall was making his way up to the
front.#7-11 Charlie Wilberg took the lead and held off some good challenges
til the #15 of Mike Langshaw made a killer move and took the top spot away
only to have taken by a bumpy move by the #0 Steve Johnson who went on to the win followed by Langshaw in 2nd, McCall with some good driving made it
through the pack to finish 3rd ,#90 Terry Gay 4th, and with a great charge on
the last lap the #70 Cam Conva last weeks feature winner 5th.
Latemodels were up and roared to the green flag . #42 JR Austin who
started on the pole quickly fell back through the field with what appeared to
handling problems. "Bubba the Love Sponge" in the 98 rock car seemed to have straightened out some of his handling problems from the heat race and was running a much better line through 3 and 4 but caught up once by the #18 car in a spin then track conditions ended his evening with the 2 spin rule which
he was not to happy about when i talked to him later in the pits. The #105 of
David Schmauss made some excellent moves up through the field til an evasive
move, spun and the #95 of Steve Mathis who also was running strong T-bone him taking Mathis out but Schmauss was able to continue.#15 Bobby Alexander with some great driving took the checkers,#02 Keith Nosbich the dash for cash winner 2nd,#47 Bill Howard was declared third after a dq for Schmauss for jumping a restart ,and the #01 of Larry Viles 4th.
Mini-Stock was won by #77 Wayne Williams with great last lap last
turn pass on the #23 of Michael Watson.
#11 Andy Kelly grabbed his 3rd feature win of the season in the
Limited Sprint's keeping his ponit lead secure. Following in 2nd was #14
Johnny Law,3rd #36 Steve Bryant, 4th the #7t of Todd Schmidt and 5th #1 Timmy George.
I would like to thank the staff of EastBay for an enjoyable evening
of racing they are friendly bunch and were most helpful with everything. If
short track dirt racing is what your craving then this is the place to be.
From EastBay Raceway..........Rick Anges
NEXT WEEK: HOME AGAIN!!!!!!! DESOTO OPENS!!!!!!!!!! |
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