Amongst the rain showers we were able to squeak in the opening night of the new USAC Western Classic Racing Series at Silver Dollar Speedway in Chico. Friday night’s John Padjen Classic was a rough one. The track still had grass on it, probably because the crew was too afraid to take any heavy equipment onto the soft damp surface. The pits weren’t much better as we had to leave our trailers in the parking lot and carry in all our tools and spares.
The midgets were the first to test the track and they blew off a layer of loose dirt before the sprints finally got to the racing surface. It was soft all night and that produced moving ruts and holes. At times it looked more like super-cross with cars bicycling and jumping completely off the ground.
After watching guys slide over the cushion and loose the heat race leads, Marty played it cool from his front row spot in heat 4. He dropped back to third place while trying to figure out the best way around the tricky track. By the end he had raced his way back up to a 2nd place finish behind Kyle Hirst and ahead of Miller, Kaeding, Sherman, and Meyers. The recently acquired Schnee Chassis was working great and we didn’t make many changes for the feature. Marty lined up 14th for the feature and after a few restarts for cars flipping, started charging to the front. By lap 20 he was up to 6th and had Brent Kaeding leaning on his rear bumper. Keading tried the top and bottom, and did get by in turn 1 just to have Marty pass him back coming off of 2. The two raced tight for a few laps before the left rear shock retainer came off of Marty’s car. He noticed the wheel hoping and wisely pulled it into the infield relegating him to a 14th place finish. If anything was going to fail, it would fail on that type of track. Marty was bummed, but excited to be going forward inside the top ten.
USAC’s 2010 National Champion, Bryan Clausen came out from Indiana to run both divisions and after breaking both track records in the midget and sprints, things got a bit weird for him. He looked like the winner of a very close midget feature, but the electronic scoring system gave him second place as Kody Swanson took the win. Then in the sprint main Clausen was out in front when he somehow locked REAR bumpers with a lapped car and ended up getting towed backwards through the infield. His engine must’ve turned over in reverse as it would not restart the race. Bill Rose took the sprint win.
Next weekend we head to Hanford and Tulare to race with the USAC West Coast 360′s in conjunction with the World of Outlaws. Marty can’t wait, and he is already replacing all the quick-pin shock mounts with simple bolts and lock-nuts. We would like to Thank Ron Nicholson and his grandson, Jake for coming out to Chico and cheering for us. Thanks to Chance and Papa for their help in the pits. Thanks to the Vermeil Crew for haulin’ stuff around for us. We also want to Thank our great sponsors, Santa Rosa Auto Parts, The Barricade Company, Blakeley Landscaping, Carmichael Auto Service, Vanlare Steering Repair, and especially The Toiyabe Group for the Schnee Chassis and so much more!
