Forum: Minnesota Dirt Track Racing Forum (go)
Moderators: StanM

Jackson was FAST! Turns one and two turned rough later in the evening, so as feature winner Steve Kinser described in his victory lane interview, the track was treacherously fast tonight! Hafertepe surprised everybody with a new track record and fast time of 15.601 seconds around the big half-miler. I think 6 or 7 cars were under the old track record. Earlier when Lasoski set the track record, I thought wow they are really flying out there. Then Paul McMahan goes almost as fast. Then Hafertepe comes out maybe 2-3 cars from the end of time trials and goes even faster yet! Not a great deal of passing, but Lucas Wolfe and Tim Kaeding did have nice runs forward in the feature as did Haud. Saldana looked like he had the field covered, but following a lap 17 red, his car did not take off well on the restart and both Kinser and Haud got by. Several laps later Saldana suffered a flat RR tire, so I speculated the tire was already having some problems on the lap 17 restart.

As one might expect, we wrecked a few sprint cars last night. The opening lap of the feature race saw two separate crashes. The first one involved three cars at the exit of turn four. Toni Lutar and Jodi Rosenboom were out while Ben Gregg's crew made repairs and he tagged the tail for the restart. Just moments after the turn four crash, Lasoski and Hafertepe got upside down in turns 1-2 just as the red flag was being displayed for the first crash. The Dude's crew got his battered car fixed to the point he could restart, but he was not competitive due to the damage sustained. Hafertepe's car was towed to the pits, and he was done for the night. With 17 laps in, Kevin Ingle also got upside down exiting turn four. In the B Main, Jason Eckard tipped over in turn four right in front of the leader Tim Kaeding. Kaeding was on the binders, but he still made contact with Eckard's car. Fortunately Kaeding kept going, but his front nose wing was pushed back. The last few laps for Kaeding saw the right front of the car pull up off the ground even on the straight-aways. It looked like a handful to drive, but he held on to win the B and then did a mini-wheel stand on the front stretch following the race.

The car count was decent, as I expected 24-30 range and we got 28 sprints signed into the pits. I very much liked the idea of the pits outside the track, as visibility just 8 rows up from the bottom of the main grandstand was good. I figued 15-20 IMCA sport mods, and Jackson drew 18 cars. The winner from Beresford, SD was making his first-ever appearance at Jackson. Very cool sponsor name on the side of his b-mod, as several in the crowd were chanting the name before, during and after the feature race! And our ride home saw Stan, Les and GRP get a good chuckle about the name and possible scenarios that could play out at a race track.

Over all, Stan M, Les M and GRP had a very enjoyable and fun trip down and back to Jackson. Jackson drew a near-capacity crowd. There was some room down in the lower 3-4 rows to sit, but the place was close to being packed. Plus they had infield parking for vehicles in both turns which I was surprised to see as many as there were in the infield "party area." The wind died down quite a bit as the sun set, so that helped out plus it was coming from a SW direction which also helped the fans in the stands. When we arrived, it was 66 degrees, partly cloudy, and windy. When we left, it was 50 degrees, clear skies, and much lighter winds. We'll be ready to head back down to Jackson on Friday night May 21 for the 3rd Annual Spring Sprint Car Nationals featuring 360 sprints for $5,000 to win along with the 305 sprints. Should be a good turnout of 360s for that show, as they have drawn 40+ each of the previous two years.

Official WoO Race Results:

http://www.worldofoutlaws.com/sprint/news/2010/may/050110_sp_racereport.aspx

I agree the track was wicked fast!! The Heats were pretty much one lane, but the racing got better through the night as the track widened out. I thought the A Feature was pretty good, even though Saldana's tire was probably going away at the time, that was an awesome restart by the King to get by him..I too thought Haud had something for the win, but he seemed to be hitting more of the ruts in 1 or 2 than anyone else. We moved from our reserved seats in the main grandstand out to the West bleachers where we could spread out and actually got top row out there. Only downfalls of the night for me was I thought warmups were suppose to start at 6 and that didnt happen til 730 and I couldnt hear the annoucers all night through the speakers. If there were no cars running we could hear a little otherwise it was tough to hear..at least out in the west bleachers. Still cant believe how fast the track was..if you blinked in the A feature you probably missed something.

http://www.senorwiener.com/

Does anyone know the rule why no double file restart?

How is that pronounced Les? Seen-your-wiener? LOL

Stan Meissner

Johnny Gibson announced that for the A Feature due to the track conditions, turns 1 & 2 I presume, and for the safety of the drivers, the WoO elected to use the single-file restart procedure. Although I personally would have liked the double-file restarts the WoO typically use, I would not have been in favor of wrecking any more cars or causing any extra risk of injury to a driver. Les M and I walked to turn one following the races. Although I could not see any major ruts, there were ridges rolled up and it was a bit bumpy out there. It appeared there was a more significant rut on the lower side of turn two, as Haud hit that bugger several times as did some other drivers. I was sitting pretty far away from turns 3-4, but following the blade work done at intermission, it did not appear to be too bad down at that end of the track. Earlier in the evening, turns 1 & 2 seemed to be in decent shape, but the incredible speed and pounding by the cars seemed to cause those turns to roll or ridge up some. Still an incredibly heavy and fast track, as one might expect for a season opener on May 1 in Jackson.

Yeah, that was one interesting and kind of funny type of sponsor to have on that winning IMCA Sport Mod car. Vinster caught a couple of very good photos of the orange and black #7 mod, so I am going to email him and see if I can get one. You never know Stan, that one just might show up in next year's trivia contest.

Thanks. Had a hard time hearing Johnny in my section at times. When Sammy's tire went down they changed it but from my view the WOO official would not let him go out. They dropped the green but the yellow came out for a spin/car in turn 2. Did the lap count or was there another reason he was not allowed to come back out? Before I thought the rule was if the caution came out before they got a lap in the car could re-enter the race. This may have been what happened as the leaders were coming out of turn 4 and it was very close.

He was not in the designated work area when the tire was changed.

Thank You Hansman for the clarification

Unfortunately for Sammy, his crew did not push the car back to the designated work area to change the tire. They just went ahead and changed it where he stopped, which I might add was dangerously close to being out of the infield area. When the subsequent caution waved for Scott Winters, who stalled on the high side of turn two, Sammy was not allowed back into the race due to the fact his crew had worked on his car outside of the designated work area. No laps were scored, so he would have been able to tag the tail had they changed the tire in the designated work area. Johnny Gibson announced this to the fans, but it appears there were some areas in the stands where the speaker system either was not working or it was very hard to hear. Fortunately where I was sitting in row 8 of section C, I could hear Johnny very good unless he talked right when the cars were in front of me. Johnny Gibson does a great job of keeping the fans informed, so it was unfortunate some fans were not able to hear him.