CSCCWRS: Placerville Results

CALIFORNIA SPRINT CAR CIVIL WAR RACE SERIES RACE RESULTS SATURDAY AUGUST 1, 1998

Point leader Crockett scores first Civil War series victory at Placerville

PLACERVILLE, CA (8-1-98) - Although he has led the California Sprint Car Civil War Race Series point standings since early in the 1998 campaign, Rio Linda driver Roger Crockett had yet to score a feature victory in the competitive Northern California series up until Saturday night.

It was Saturday when Crockett took command of the 30-lap feature event during the seventh Civil War event of the season at Placerville Speedway, a track that saw the 16-year-old driver's father score a multitude of victories and nearly a dozen championships at during the late 80's.

"We've been trying to win won here for awhile now and everything just went our way tonight," said Crockett, who piloted Roger Henderson's #7n to the front of the field late in the race. "We've managed to stay in the point lead by being consistent in each race and tonight we continued to do just that. Hopefully our consistency will continue like this."

After failing to finish in the top four in heat race competition, Crockett was forced to earn a starting spot in the 10-lap B-main event. In an event that was just one of many plagued by the yellow flag Saturday, Crockett placed second behind Colfax driver and fast qualifier Colby Weisz in the last chance event to earn his starting time back for the big 30-lap A-feature.

Starting in the fourth position behind Weisz for the feature, Crockett wasted no time what so ever in powering up his machine to take over Weisz and move into the third position. The green flag in this event was waved to polesitter Jonathan Allard of Chico and Mark Hall of Grass Valley.

Entering the first set of turns, Hall was the first driver to the front of the field as he muscled his V-6 powered machine ahead of Allard. Once he was in front of the field, Hall began distancing himself from Allard and Crockett and began encountering lapped traffic before the event halfway point was even reached.

As the top three drove with nearly two car lengths between one another for the first 20-laps, the action then began to intensify as Allard drove both high and low on the racing surface in search of a good line in which he initiate a pass on Hall. Meanwhile, Crockett was on the move as well as he closed in on Allard, drove to the low side of turns one and two and moved into the second position as he traveled down the backstretch.

When a yellow caution flag flew one lap after Crockett's backstretch pass on Allard, a single file restart followed. As Hall led the field back to the green flag, Crockett set his sights on the leader and began stalking his prey. Driving to the low sides of turns three and four on the restart, Crockett maneuvered his way beneath the leader and took the lead he would never relinquish.

In the waning laps of the event, Crockett distanced himself from Hall and went on to score his first Civil War victory of the season and his first career win at Placerville. Despite suffering what he believed to be a motor loss on the final circuit, Hall maintained the second place position at the finish line where he was followed by Allard, Ray Rust of Garden Valley and Andy Forsberg of Auburn.

"Roger drove one heck of a race here tonight," said Hall. "We were lucky to hang on to second because it looks like I may have lost the motor in this one. Fortunately it held out long enough to finish the race. Of we would have had one more lap tonight We never would have finished this well."

As the three top finishers pulled into victory lane Saturday, Allard was one of the first people to congratulate Crockett on the hard earned victory.

"I did everything I could to try and get around Roger tonight, " Allard told the capacity crowd. " When I ran he he went high, when I went low he went down low. There was just no way to get by him at all. He did a great job tonight and we're happy with a third on a night like this."

In preliminary event on Saturday, the caution flag made an uncountable number of appearances in both heat races and the semi-main events. In heat race competition the most serious incidents included roll-overs by Grass Valley's Billy Wallace and Mike Benson of Calistoga. Wallace was the more serious of the two red flags and he flipped over on the front stretch at the waving of the green flag, collected several cars including Crockett, in the incident and sheared the entire front suspension assembly from his machine off. Amazingly, Wallace was able to return in the B-main where he maintained fourth until the second to last lap when an error in turn two cost him a transfer position by just one spot.

Victories in heat races included Shane Scott, Jeff Young, Chad Riolo and C.J. Humphreys. In the D-main event Claudia Harvey of Grass Valley up the honors. Mark Tabor Sr. won the C-main that was shortened to just five laps due to time restraints.

The next California Sprint Car Civil War Race Series will take competitors back to Twin Cities Speedway in Marysville on Saturday, August 15 for the eighth round of action and back to Silver Dollar Speedway in Chico on Friday, August 28 for the ninth and final round of competition prior to the second annual "Pacific Sprint Cup" at Chico on September 16. The Pacific Sprint Cup features the top 32 drivers in the championship point standings in an invitational event worth $15,000. For any further information on the upcoming Civil War events contact the office of John Padjen Motorsports at (916) 969-7484.

CALIFORNIA SPRINT CAR CIVIL WAR RACE SERIES RACE SUMMARY Round 7 - PLACERVILLE SPEEDWAY, PLACERVILLE - Aug. 1, 1998

FAST QUALIFIERS: 1.) Colby Weisz - 11:220; 2.) Jonathan Allard - 11:276 3.) Billy Sellers - 11:312 4.) Mike Benson - 11:393 5.) Mark Hall - 11:421

HEAT 1: Shane Scott; Kyle Schild; Bryan Bullard; Mark Hall; Jim VanLare.

HEAT 2: Jeff Young; Ray Rust; Jonathan Allard; Terry Cox; Gary Morgan.

HEAT 3: Chad Riolo; Scooter Lambert; Randy Mello; Ricky Wondergem; David Robinson Jr.

HEAT 4: C.J. Humphreys; Andy Forsberg; Steve Watts; Shauna Hogg; Joey Magaruh

D-MAIN: Claudia Harvey; Greg Sherman; John Sherman; Mark Wells; Mark Tabor Jr.

C-MAIN: Mark Tabor Sr.; Jamie Cavagnaro; MArk Mackay; Rick Frock; Mike McCreary.

B-MAIN: Colby Weisz; Roger Crockett; Jeff Halleib; Gary Morgan; Billy Wallace.

A-MAIN: Crockett; Hall; Allard; Rust; Forsberg; Lambert; Scott; Bullard; Riolo; Weisz; Young; Schild; Hogg; Watts; Halleib; Mello; Cox; Morgan; Wondergem; Humphreys.

CONTINGENCY WINNERS ART ENTERPRISES: Andy Forsberg; CHRIS' CLUB: Andy Forsberg; Colby Weisz HUNT MAGNETOS: Billy Wallace; JB ENTERPRISES: Billy Wallace RIOLO RACING ENGINES: Jeff Youngl; TAYLOR WINGS: Chad Riolo WELD RACING WHEELS: Claudia Harvey