Lancaster-California's Austin Murphy ran a strong race and won the March 8th,35 lap, JJ&B Racing Series Late Model feature during a very full and exciting night of ASA sanctioned racing at the Havasu 95 Speedway in Lake Havasu City-Arizona. The busy night, at the most scenic quarter mile asphalt track in the southwest, also treated their fans to action from the ASA Street Stocks, Bandolero and Factory Stock divisions. 

 

Series points leader Bobby Keirns led the pack of late models under the initial green flag and paced the field through lap seven when the one and only yellow flag of this race came out due to a spin in turn two. Coming off of the restart Mark Schriner, another major player in the JJ&B point standings, took command of the race. By now Murphy had moved up through the top five and was soon on the leader's rear bumper. This was the part of the race that brought the SRO fans off of their chairs and on their feet. Murphy pulled up alongside of Schriner's car and the two drivers put on a door to door Late Model driving clinic for several laps. Which driver actually led what lap during the duel was determined by their transponders and the margin of a driver's lead was often the width of a front bumper. Needless to say the crowd went crazy and thoroughly enjoyed watching it. 

 

By lap 14 Murphy had managed to pull ahead of Schriner to take the lead for good. Once the nose of his Chevrolet found a source of fresh air he was gone. The only time the competition had a chance to get close to him came in the final stages of the race when he had to carefully negotiate the presence of some lapped traffic. Murphy took the checkered flag with a full half a straightaway lead over the rest of the field. Danny Gay, who towed his car in from San Diego, worked his way to second. Schriner finished third while Rob Munoz and Kevin James completed the top five. 

 

After pulling his Lucas Oil/Frazier Masonry Chevrolet into the Havasu 95 Speedway's victory lane, Murphy's family and crew joined him and the celebration of their second win in three starts, during the track's current winter racing series, began. "I had to race the 82, (Schriner), really hard and I was concerned that I wore out my tires a bit," Murphy said. When asked about future participation at the Havasu 95 Speedway, Muprhy smiled and said "We've ran three races here and I've won two of them. You can bet I want to come back."

 

In ASA Street Stock action an old school driver showed the younger crowd that age has nothing to do with driving a race car. 68 year old Ralph Adams took the lead on the second lap and simply out drove the competition in the 25 lap feature. This race was halted with a red flag on lap 6 when Bryant Sutterfield's car slammed hard into the turn three wall. The driver was not injured but the same could not be said for the right side of his car. An effort to restart the race only brought out another yellow flag when Nathan Hovdal spun his car in turn one at the exact same time Travis Jaracz was riding the Havasu merry go round through turn two. From that point it was all green flag laps and hard racing for the ASA Street Stocks. Adams quickly ran out the laps to claim his first feature at the Havasu 95 Speedway. Tommy Agosta, Jim Carlo, Chip Campbell and Alex Martinez followed Adams under the checkers to complete the top five. In victory lane the Oak Hills-California driver thanked his primary sponsor: that would Mrs Adams who was standing in the pits proudly smiling at her winning race driver. 

 

The future of racing was present at the Havasu 95 Speedway that night when the youngsters in their small, but extremely fast, Bandolero cars came out onto the quarter mile oval for their feature race. Shelby Orozco came off of the front row, ran strong and quickly became the car to beat. Something really interesting developed on lap six of this race. Alex Morgan pulled up on the outside of the Orozco car and launched a door to door attempt to take the race lead. Directly on their rear bumper were the cars driven by Tommy Kelley and Tyler Fabozzi who were also racing door to door. The four cars came sailing around the track in a tight knit, Daytona style, bunch and the fans loved it. Unfortunately things unraveled for Orozco on the next lap when her car spun on the low line coming off of turn four. That gave Morgan command of the race and the 11 year old, from Lake Havasu City, ran out the remaining laps to claim his first feature win at his home track. Kelley and Fabozzi followed him under the checkers to take second and third. Orozco did a nice job of recovering from her earlier spin and charged her way to fourth while Kyle Niquette completed the top five. 

 

The fan favorite ASA Factory Stocks completed the evening with their 12 lap door to door motorized mayhem much to the delight of everyone in the packed grandstands. When the checkered flag finally flew,following multiple on track incidents, Gary Felish parked his daughter's car in victory lane. Stephanie Felish was reported to be out of town attending a wedding so she asked her Dad to drive her big pink #11 in her place. Dad did the family team proud by literally leading the entire race. 

 

Racing returns to the Havasu 95 Speedway on March 22nd featuring the ASA sanctioned Modified, Street Stock and Factory Stock divisions as well as a special guest appearance by the USAC Ford Focus Midget Series.