BAKERSFIELD, California -- Brian Richardson returned to Mesa Marin Raceway's victory lane, May 19th, after winning the Washington Mutal 50 NASCAR Late Model race. The event was part of the raceway's special Thursday Night Thunder program and required two green-white-checker senarios to finish the race.
Chris Smith and Josh Horn led the 18 car field under the initial green flag. Horn, who won the previous May 7th race, again appeared to be very strong and led the vast majority of the 50 laps.
On lap 20 the first of two serious accidents in the race occurred on the backstretch when Jeff Smith and Mike Alexander made contact. The wheels of the Smith Chevrolet came off of the ground. The nose of the car slammed into the asphalt but, fortunately, the car did not roll over. The sheet metal on the driver's side of Alexander's Chevrolet was stripped away from the front fender all the way to the back bumper. Race winner Richardson also caught a little of the action and sustained some front end and hood damage to his Chevrolet.
The caution laps allowed rookie sensation "Sugar" Ray Robinson to get to Horn's back bumper and the race for the lead was on. On lap 39 Robinson was able to get under Horn's car, on the low side of turn three, to take the lead just before a caution flag, due to debris from Jeff Destefani's car, bunched up the field again.
On lap 46 Roy Degeer, who has won twice this season, took over second and set his sights on Robinson. Unfortunately the charge only last two laps when Degeer's Ford spun on the backstretch and grazed the wall. This was the incident that set up the first green-white-checker attempt.
On the lap 49 restart Robinson now had Cody Pruitt on his rear bumper. One lap later, going into turn one, Pruitt hit the back of Robinson's car and launched the second serious accident of the night. Robinson spun up the turn and the driver's side of the car slammed hard into the wall which ended any chance of the rookie driver winning his first Late Model race. Robinson was not injured but the same could not be said for his car which sustained massive damage. NASCAR officials felt that Pruitt's driving was overly agressive and blackflagged him.
The second green-white-checker attempt found Richardson in the lead who made quick work of running out the final laps for the win. Horn was second, series points leader Eric Richardson was third while Kyle McDermott and John Compton completed the top five.
After parking his Rich Pak Motorsports Chevrolet in victory lane, a very happy Brian Richardson said "I was on old tires tonight so I wanted to take my time and pick my way through the field. We only had 50 laps to do it, but, everyone seemed to be taking care of themselves in front of me and I just kept knocking them off and being very patient. No one else had any patience tonight, my patience was the key that put me in the winner's circle."
Commenting on the hard racing that created the incident between Robinson and Pruitt that put him in the lead at the end Richardson said "after the restart I saw that I had the 13, (Horn), beat and I said I'm either going to finish third or these guys are going to wreck and I'm going to win it. So I backed off and, sure enough, when those guys got into each other I saw a hole on the bottom and I went right through it as quick as I could."
When asked about the intensity of a double green-white-checker senario, during a wreck marred event, Richardson smiled and said "it's awesome if you're leading. I didn't have radios, (due to a malfunction), so when I went into turn one I didn't know if Josh was underneath me or not. I didn't see him in my rear view mirror so I gave him half a lane but Josh is a very clean driver and I have a lot of respect for him."
