BAKERSFIELD, California -- It's been said that a driver feels special when he wins a race at what is considered to be his home track. A win can be even sweeter when a driver happens to own the home track. That's what happened when Mesa Marin Raceway owner Marion Collins won the annual Race of Champions, October 14th, at the Bakersfield oval that he opened back in 1977. The event was part of the raceway's annual October Classic.
The annual Race of Champions reunited past track champions for an exhibition race in identical prepared street stock cars. The field included 1990 champion Mark Wilson, Frank Adamo, the 1991 and '92 champion, 1996 and '97 champion Dick Shepherd, 2000 title holder Mike Duncan along with 2001 champion Dan Holtz and the newly crowned 2005 champion Eric Richardson.
There was supposed to be one more driver in the field: 1986 track champion Gary Collins. But, at the last moment, his seat was filled by a genuine ringer: his dad, and track owner, Marion Collins. Why not? After all, he did win a Bakersfield Speedway dirt tract title in 1974 and had it not been for Collins' 28 years of hard work at Mesa Marin none of the other guys would have won their championships.
Because it was the last ever race for the track owned street stock cars, there was basically not a lot of rules and driver etiquette. The official starter pretty much placed the black flag in its storage box for this race. The field ran ten laps followed by a yellow flag. The spectators, via applause, voted to invert the entire field. They ran four more green flag laps and the spectators again voted for field inversion and that put Marion Collins into the lead. The field was stopped again on lap 18 with Collins still in the lead. This time, the spectators, clearly wanting to see Collins win, voted against inversion.
After quickly running out the final two laps to win the race, Marion Collins proved that he has no problems with second hand smoke. He did a massive victory burn out on the front stretch much to the delight of the crowd. In victory lane his car was rammed by Mark Wilson who finished second. With the energy of a man half his age, Collins jumped up and down on the roof of his car while the crowd roared its approval.
Laughing, Collins said "all of these guys had a handicap tonight because I was out here practicing everyday." Wilson joined in on the fun and said "all I know was he walked up to us and said I'll take whatever car is left and, lo and behold, it turned out to be the fastest car."
