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POMBO GAINS IN POINTS IN TITLE CHASE WITH VICTORY
By Dan Fleisher
DATELINE: HANFORD CA 9/16/2007
It's still a daunting task for Davey Pombo in his quest for the SCRA 360 Sprint Car championship but he gained 14 valuable points on leader Peter Murphy by sweeping the program at Kings Speedway in Hanford (CA) Saturday night. Pombo recorded fast time, won his heat and fought off a furious early challenge from rookie Richard VanderWeerd to capture his sixth feature of the season.
After trailing Murphy by 80 points two events ago, Pombo has now gained a total of 16 and trails by 64 (1003 to 939) with only two events remaining, the Dirt Nationals at Kings on September 28/29. Meanwhile, Murphy finished second to Pombo for the fifth time this year (Pombo has finished second to Murphy on two occasions), and needs only to keep his consistent high finishes to garner the title.
Greg Bragg recorded his best finish of the year by gaining the final spot on the podium. He's only competed in six of the season's 14 events but moved into 11th in the standing with 367 points. Rusty Carlile and Justyne Hamblin rounded out the top-five.
The surprise of the evening was the terrific showing of Richard VanderWeerd, the 16-year-old rookie who looked like a seasoned pro. VanderWeerd won his heat, finished second in the Dash and led the first 17 laps of the feature. Pombo, starting from third, took seven laps to pass Carlile for second, and set his sights on the leader. He slowly but surely reduced the margin and then the battle began in earnest. The two ran neck and neck, bringing cheers from the fans, with the rookie showing no signs of intimidation what-so-ever. Pombo finally took the point on lap 19 but VanderWeerd wasn't finished. He remained on Pombo's back bumper and was about to make his move to regain the lead. Coming out of turn two on lap 25 however, he made contact with the lapped car of Brett Lowder and spun into the infield. After joining the back of the pack, he eventually worked his way back into the top-ten, finishing a more than respectable seventh. It was the second event in a row that a rookie almost won the feature. Last week, Myles Bishop dominated until he crashed late in the race.
With VanderWeerd relegated to the back, Murphy assumed the second spot for the restart. He obtained that position with a furious drive from seventh after losing two positions from his fifth starting position when he brushed wheels with another car exiting turn two. It seemed to anger the normally quite, reserved Aussie and he 'got up on the wheel.' After being bogged down in lapped traffic and battling Jonathan Logan, Justyne Hamblin and Albert Pombo, Murphy picked off one car after another and finally raced to fourth by lap 17. He slipped by Carlile into third on lap 19 before gaining the runner-up spot when VanderWeerd spun.
It appeared that Murphy had the fastest car on the track and would give Pombo all he could handle on the restart. However, when the cars were realigned, the lapped car of Axel Walker was placed between the two front-runners and the anticipated battle never developed. The red flag was unfurled directly after the restart when Matt Day flipped his machine in turn four after running into the prone car of Logan who spun in front of on-coming traffic. When the cars re-fired for the final restart, Pombo once again had the cushion of Walker between himself and Murphy and that's 'all she wrote.'
Sixth through tenth place consisted of Albert Pombo, VanderWeerd, Jayson Mays, Andy Ferris and Walker, all making their initial starts of the season with SCRA. As mentioned earlier, Davey Pombo and VanderWeerd captured their respective Heats as did Bragg.
The big 'loser' of the evening (point wise) was John Niggli. Entering the evening 11 points ahead of Hamblin for top rookie honors, he qualified third fast, gaining eight additional points, but then suffered mechanical woes during his heat and missed the main. Meanwhile, Hamblin (602) earned 56 points with her third-place heat finish and fifth-place main finish, and now leads Niggli (565) by 37.
QUALIFYING:
#38 Davey Pombo 15.661
#51 Rusty Carlile 15.823
#9 John Niggli 16.016
#51T Jeff Gardner 16.156
#32 Jonathan Logan 16.243
#21 Peter Murphy 16.267
#35 Albert Pombo 16.295
#10 Richard VanderWeerd 16.405
#11 Greg Bragg 16.438
#8 Justyne Hamblin 16.545
#8m Jayson Mays 16.596
#4j Andy Ferris 17.132
#27 John Iturriria 17.348
#97 Matt Day 17.514
#23 Jerry Wise 17.555
#44 Bret Lowder 17.616
#62 Axel Walker 17.626
#14 Adam Frith-Smith 17.636
HEAT #1-10 LAPS
D. Pombo
Iturriria
Hamblin
Pombo, A
Gardner
Lowder
HEAT # 2-10 LAPS
VanderWeerd
Carlile
Logan
Mays
Day
Walker
HEAT #3-10 LAPS
Bragg
Murphy
Wise
Frith-Smith
Ferris DNF
Niggli DNF
DASH-6 LAPS
Pombo, A
VanderWeerd
Pombo, D
Carlile
Murphy
Logan
MAIN-30 LAPS
1. Pombo, D
2. Murphy
3. Bragg
4. Carlile
5. Hamblin
6. Pombo, A
7. VanderWeerd
8. Mays
9. Ferris
10. Walker
11. Wise
12. Lowder
13. Logan
14. Day
15. Gardner
16. Iturriria
17. Frith-Smith
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