Story and Photos by Dave Sink
BRADENTON, Fla. (May 4, 2013) – Dave Steele removed a RaceCeiver that was wedged under his throttle pedal to win the Tampa Bay Area Racing Association (TBARA) opener Saturday night at the newly reopened Full Throttle Speedway before a large crowd.
Dude Teate paced the opening 26 laps in a race that went caution free to the checkered flag. Lapped cars littered the bottom of the track the majority of the race allowing Steele the chance to close in on the race leaders once he resolved his throttle issues.
A happy Steele explained his early race issues in victory as well as the pass for the lead.
”Our RaceCiever fell off and was under our gas pedal” explained Steele.”I didn’t know if we had a potential stuck throttle issue. I didn’t know what was going on. I reached over and felt the RaceCeiver was gone and knew what was going on. It was sliding around down there. Dude was running fast and he knew I took a couple of stabs on the bottom. He knew I was down there so he kinda went on the defense to block the bottom. I knew that would open us up for the top. I made her stick and it worked out good for us.”
Steele passed Teate coming off turn two to gain the lead and never looked back. Teate finished second flowed by Scott Adema, Joey Aguilar, and Mickey Kempgens rounding out the top five. Teate led laps 1-26 and Steele lead laps 27-30.
It was a clean sweep for Steele on the night as he had earlier won the TQ midget feature as well as his heat race in both divisions. The feature went 30 laps caution free.
FEATURE FINISH: 1.33 David Steele 2.31 Dude Teate 3. 67 Scotty Adema 4.11. Joey Aguilar 5. 5 Mickey Kempgens 6. 55 Tommy Nichols 7. 21 Jimmy Alvis Jr. 8.8 Kurt Taylor 9. 22 Johnny Gilbertson 10.2 Larry Brazil Jr. 11. 68 Sonny Hartley 12. 7 John Gilbert Jr. 13.51 Mark Gimmler 14. J1Mike Tharp 15. 85 Rex Hollinger 16. 54 Todd Hoggard 17.37 Jason Hoggard 18. 17 Francis Crowder 19. 97 Grant Thormeier 20. 8 Kurt Taylor 21. 23 Chris Gimmler 22. 9 Matt Alfonso D.N.S. 23. 39 Alan Randisi D.N.S. 24. 15 Geoff Styner D.N.S.