A Night with the "Dirt People"

The place is rich with history having had all the great stars of dirt racing here. Racers from all over the country converge on this little track every year for the 360 Sprint Winternationals,Hav-a-Tampa all-star late model week and the All-star Sprint Winternationals packing the stands week after week with diehard race fans....."The Dirt People" are some of the greatest race fans around! This week Jack Smith and I wound up the KARNAC tour here.....

East Bay Raceway Fans, Sprints and Late Model Stars
                        East Bay Photos

The Limited Late Models came out on the dirt first and after last weeks
first lap crash which took out 15 cars these guys were back with a vengeance #33 Jeff Matthews jumped out to an early and impressive lead leaving the rest of the pack to battle behind him. Just when it looked like he might be on his way to his first feature win of the year smoke billowed out of the #33 car and his night was over just that quick. With Jeff gone the top six cars were in a heated battle for the lead with the #21 of Forrest Gough and the 11b of Jamie Burrows running side by side for the lead. Then coming out of turn 4 Burrows and Gough tangled and spun bringing out a caution and sending them both to the rear and setting up a great race with #46 Danny Bowman and #52 Kenny Blackmon trading the top spot back and forth, trading sheet metal and paint lap after lap and then on the final lap Blackmon made a fantastic inside move and crossed the finish line 1st with Bowman right there in 2nd, #15 Roger Crouse 3rd, 4th was #81 Steve Pratt and coming home 5th #45 Bob Peterson.
    
Limited Sprints action saw #85 Clyde Poole do some hard charging to take
the feature win followed closely by points leader #11a Andy Kelley in 2nd,
#10 Matt Stegeman held on to 3rd, 4th place went to the #14 of Johnny Law and 5th was #51 of Tim Holston.
    
Up next were the Wild Winged Florida Outlaw Sprints with radio
personality "Bubba the Love Sponge" in his new car joining the field and
holding his own, showing some good driving skills in the high powered car but it was his teammates' #42x Sport Allen and the #42t Johnny Gilbertson were the ones who stole the show skillfully cutting through the field slicing and dicing until it was Sport and Gilbertson battling each other for the lead.
Slinging the clay high into the air with some great side by side racing it
was Allen adding his 13th feature win of the year to his impressive resume
and adding to his point lead over the rest of the field. Teammate Gilbertson
held off last weeks feature winner #2A of Kenny Adams for 2nd, 4th went the 88t of Taylor Andrews and 5th was the #1A of 2nd place points man Robbie Smith.

When the late models roared out onto the track everyone was expecting a
runaway race from the leader in the points #02 Keith Nosbisch but that wasn't to be as he was caught up in the first lap melee and was forced to park his broken race car. This left the door open and the #105 of David Schmauss took advantage of it flying out to an early lead but the #88, last years points champ, Donnie Tanner went right along with him with #0 of Bobby Alexander and #42 J.R. Austin right there with them trading 2nd back to 4th positions. Then coming out of turn four a large puff of smoke came from under Schmauss's car from the motor expiring and he had to pull it off the track.  Alexander assumed the lead but then spun and was forced to the rear of the field leaving Tanner with the lead setting up a five car battle for the finish.

With an impressive move from the veteran driver #15 Bobby Alexander with a left front wheel in the air took the lead on the backstretch from Tanner
bringing #47 Bill Howard with him. Alexander held off the charge of Howard
and Tanner to take the win Howard in 2nd Tanner in 3rd #95 Steve Mathis got by #42 Austin finishing 4th and 5th respectively
    
#90 Terry Gay outlasted the rest of the Street Stocks and took the hot
pink race car into victory lane.
    
The Mini-Stocks were tuning up for next weekends "Mr. Budweiser" $2500
to win feature race and were going at it hot and heavy. The #11 of Chris
Nosbich looked like he might be on his way to his first feature win but the
#27 of Scotty Williams was having none of it as he made a last lap charge and crossed the stripe ahead of Nosbich for the feature win. #28 Robert Douglas came home 3rd, the #7jr. of Dorsey Strickland 4th and rounding out the top 5 #29 William Hampton.
    
As always EastBay provided an awesome night of racing and with the Mr. Budweiser series for each class coming up it will heat up the racing that
much more.
     
I want to thank the staff and crew of EastBay for a great time and I
just wanna say that I was proud to be one of the "Dirt
People"!............From EastBay........Rick Anges

                                      East Bay Photos

                                   -Rick Anges is an Associate Editor for Karnac.com-