BAKERSFIELD, California -- Big Bear Lake, California's Tony Edwards took the lead on lap two and completely dominated the Super Kart 40, Lucas Oil Pro Four Challenge Series, race held September 10th at Bakersfield's Mesa Marin Raceway.
While Edwards and Bloomington's Eddie Secord were putting on a two car show at the front of the field, many of the other drivers were struggling with hard racing luck that brought out three yellow flags and one red flag that consumed nearly half of the race.
The field raced its way to lap seven before one of the worst incidents of the entire evening ocurred. Coming out of turn two, Rob Kimele's engine blew and dumped oil on the track. Daniel Matson and John Soares got into the oil, the wall and each other. The Soares car sustained major crash damage and was through for the night. Matson limped to pit road, with right side crash damage, when all of a sudden the engine caught on fire. The flames quickly engulfed the engine compartment and were getting precariously close to the driver's cockpit when two men, from another Pro 4 team, ran onto pit road and helped Matson made a quick escape from the car. The always outstanding Mesa Marin safety crew arrived in seconds and made quick work of getting fire put out and prevented the car from becoming a total loss.
Later in the evening a much calmer Matson commented on the incident and said "the 48, (Kimele) blew his motor and I just got into the oil and had nowhere to go. Then coming in, (to pit road), it tore up the fuel line and just roached up." The South Jordan, Utah driver, and four year racing veteran, also expressed gratitude for the help he received following the fire saying "I thank those guys a lot, they saved me."
The hard knocks were not over in the Super Kart 40. The field barely made two laps following the restart when the yellow appeared again following Rex Lockwood's hard crash in turn two. The Victorville driver was uninjured but the same could not be said for his Chevrolet Monte Carlo.
The final yellow flag of the race flew on lap 18 when Jim Snow spun his Monte Carlo around in turn two. At the exact same time, Scott Gatson and Brian Gildwell made contact with each other in turn three and left debris all over the track.
By the time all of the clean up was done there were 11 laps left in the race. Edwards and Secord again made quick work of seperating themselves from the field and resumed their duel. Secord was extremely fast in the turns and easily got up to Edwards' bumper. However, Edwards was extremely strong in the straights and it was that advantage that brought him under the checkers. Brett Edwards, Mike O'Hara and Don Minut completed the top five.
In victory lane a very happy Edwards laughed and said "we had a special set of tires, I guess, and there was no beating us. We went out front and we stayed there." On the subject of the yellow and red flags he said "they actually worked to out benefit. Our car was good on the restarts and the guy behind us wasn't so it worked to our benefit." Commenting on the duel with Secord in the final laps the winner said "we run different combinations and engines, he runs a little bit smaller, (engine), than me but with a better set up and we're just lucky we had the horsepower to keep him behind us."
