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Ocean Speedway: Fremont teen Golobic on fast-track to success
By TONY KARIS
WATSONVILLE -- When do teenage race car drivers, aka "young guns," become veteran racers?
Fremont's Shane Golobic moved closer to that designation at Ocean Speedway on Friday night, winning Round 4 in the 360 winged sprint car Taco Bravo series.
Golobic pulled off a near clean sweep by winning the 30-lap feature and the second heat race. He qualified second to series leader Ronnie Day. Last week's fastest qualifier Justin Sanders, 18, was slower than Golobic by only one-hundredth of a second.
At 19, Golobic has 10 years of racing experience under his belt. He won his first 410 King of the West sprint car race at 16 on Ocean Speedway's quarter-mile clay oval. He finished in the top ten in World of Outlaw competition a few weeks ago and was 17th overall out of 256 drivers in this year's indoor midget series, the Chili Bowl.
Last week Golobic finished eighth after losing control and spinning out on the final lap to the checkered flag. He would have finished second.
Golobic and Sanders represent a new era in sprint car racing: young boys and girls starting training at five and six years old who develop the knowledge and attitude for winning by the time they reach their teenage years. Ocean Speedway has more than its share of tenacious young drivers in every division.
Day, of Salinas, led Friday's feature from the start. He surrendered the lead to Golobic on lap 19 when his car bicycled on two wheels after catching a rut in Turn 2 a
lap earlier. Golobic withstood all challengers during a series of late-race caution period restarts for the win.
Day snookered the two young guns in qualifying, winning the Ray Scheidt's Electric fast time award with a fast lap of 11.804 seconds.
The pace of the race for the leaders was so fast they began lapping slower cars by lap four.
With Sanders second, Day third and Tim and Brent Kaeding in the top five, a surprising change in the order took place between laps 23 and 24.
The lapped car of Carter Train was lined up between race leader Golobic and Sanders for the restart. Sanders and Train touched wheels heading into Turn 1 with Sanders spinning out. Sanders restarted from the rear of the field to salvage a top-10 finish.
One lap later, in third place, Tim Kaeding passed Day on the restart and then spun his car into the infield after contact with Train exiting Turn 2.
During the caution period, Sanders and Kaeding let their displeasure be known to Train when Sanders banged wheels with Train and Kaeding hit Train from the rear and spinning him out. Kaeding was disqualified for unsportsmanlike conduct.
The Kaeding family featured Brent winning the first heat race and claiming third in the feature. Golobic outmaneuvered Bud Kaeding for his heat race win and Sanders blew the field away, jumping from fourth to first on the first lap and beating Tim Kaeding in heat race three. Sanders' crowd-pleasing drive was awarded with a standing ovation during his cool-down lap.
The final six laps provided an exciting and hard-hitting show with Brent Kaeding battling Ronnie Day for second and two-time champion Tommy Tarlton exchanging bump-and-run hits with San Martin's Craig Smith. Tarlton won the DDIN hard-charger award, gaining ten positions to finish fourth while Smith was scored fifth.
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