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SHERMAN TOP S-MAN IN MANZY’S “LEALAND LEGACY”
By Robert Mayson
Phoenix, Ariz. – May 19, 2007 – The Lucas Oil USAC/CRA Sprint Cars helped celebrate the career of Lealand McSpadden Saturday night at Manzanita Speedway with the 30-lap running of the “Lealand Legacy” race.
Appropriately, one of Manzy’s favorite sons, Jeremy Sherman of Surprise, Ariz., came home with a popular victory after starting eleventh in the Clay Sourant/Maxum 2L Custom Trucks No. 75A Maxim.
“We worked the bottom (early) only because it was the only way to get by guys, and when we ran the top guys were sliding up in front of us slowing us down. With it being Lealand’s night I knew I had get back to the cushion and win it for him on the top. I told Lealand after the race that I know he wouldn’t have been as excited had we not went back to hustling the car up on the top,” Sherman said with a smile after collecting his second career USAC/CRA win.
A pair of Arizona drivers, Tom Ogle and Matt Rossi, shared the front row for the feature race with Ogle jumping into the lead at the start. Fast time qualifier Tony Jones of Norco, Calif., ran eighth at the end of the opening lap and would be the man on the move early. Driving the Alexander Trucking/La Villa Restaurant #4 DRC, Jones seemingly picked-off cars at will and by the end of the eighth-lap was up to third. Equally as impressive was Charles Davis, Jr., who ran fourth ten laps into the race after starting along side of Jones in the fourth row.
Ogle had enjoyed a comfortable lead until the caution flag flew on lap-12 for Rossi, who was slowing with a flat left rear tire. Second-place Danny Sheridan of Santa Maria, Calif. moved his Kittle Plumbing/PJ1 No. 18 Stinger into the lead on the restart. Ogle would retire five laps later with engine problems.
The action was halted on the 17th lap after a spectacular double-flip along the front-straight involving Ryan Devitt and J.T. Imperial. Fortunately, neither driver was hurt.
The price of Davis and Jones’ charge to the front was evident during the stoppage, with both drivers forced to make tire changes. By rule, this put both cars to the rear of the field for the restart.
With the complexion of race now completely change, Mike Spencer of Temecula, Calif., moved his Ron Chaffin/Temecula Valley Pipe & Supply #50 Maxim into the runner-up spot. Remarkably, Sherman, who qualified 16th out of 22 cars, now found himself in third.
“We were pretty disgusted after qualifying because we came out here with a different package hoping to be a little better and we were real bad,” Sherman recalled. “We ran our normal Manzanita set-up for the main event. Our left rear (tire) blistered-up pretty good, so we tried saving it for the last ten laps. We had a little help with some guys falling out, but once we got up to third, and we could put our car where we wanted, it all kind of fell in place and I knew we had to put the hammer down because that’s the way Lealand would have done it.”
Reminiscent of “the way Lealand would have done it,” Sherman would not be denied running that close to the front near the end of a race. Three laps after Jason York’s turn-three flip brought-out the final red-flag of the race, Sherman passed Spencer with pretty two-turn slide-job.
Four laps from the finish, Sherman pulled-off a turn-one slider on Sheridan for the lead. Once out front, “The Shermanator” became “The Dominator” and went on to beat Sheridan to the checkered flag by over three-seconds.
Spencer finished third with Jones battling back to place fourth. Marion, Indiana’s Scotty Weir overcame a flat left rear tire resulting from a lap-16 collision with Casey Shuman and went on to drive his Glen Crossno/ITI Performance No. 38 Bullet to a fifth-place finish, one spot ahead of Davis.
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