BAKERSFIELD, California -- Brian Richardson came off of the front row and led ever lap to win the Crystal Pools Memorial Day 100 NASCAR Late Model race, May 28th, at Mesa Marin Raceway. It was his second win in a row at the Bakersfield half mile oval.
However this is not to imply that Richardson had an easy evening at Mesa Marin. He spent the vast majority of the race fending off a repeated challenge from his cousin, and Rich Pak Motorsports team mate, Eric Richardson who pulled into second on lap 15 and glued himself to his cousin's bumper all the way to the final lap.
It was the final lap when this race became the most interesting. Coming off of turn four, with the checkers waving in the air, Josh Horn was racing hard to make a last ditch effort to take over second from Richardson. Horn drifted high and tagged Richardson in the left rear quarter panel and sent him into a wild spin down the front straight away. A certain Rich Pak Motorsports one-two finish vanished in a plume of white tire smoke.
After the race there was the almost obligatory finger pointing and shouting between the two teams. The Mesa Marin Raceway security staff anticipated this and made very quick work of getting themselves into position to handle any situation that presented itself. This was aided and abetted by good leadership, from individuals representing both teams, and cooler heads soon prevailed.
However, NASCAR Dodge Weekly Racing officials had not weighed in on the last lap issue and called Horn to their pit road office. The expression on Horn's face, when he left that office, clearly said it all: he had been penalized and moved to the tail end of the lead lap cars in the final running order. Richardson was placed in tenth position.
In the final, revamped, finishing order Cody Pruitt took over second followed by Chris Smith and Jeff Smith. Roy W. Degeer, who set the fast time in qualifying, completed the top five.
After parking his Rich Pak Motorsports Chevrolet in Mesa Marin's victory lane, for the second time in nine days, a very happy and tired Brian Richardson said "last week, (the May 19th race), I thought it was tough starting from 18th and coming back for the win but I think this week was actually tougher. Eric gave me trouble all night long. This is the most tired I've been in a long time inside of a race car."
The flag to flag win was quite remarkable in light of the fact that the team had to overcome some problems early in the day. Explaining the situation Richardson said, "we struggled all day. We had trouble with a wheel bearing and we had trouble with the car's rear end. We made some adjustments after qualifying that we thought was going to be good and sure enough it was just right. Man, what a race."
