The rains of August stopped long enough Saturday night to give blue skies and air filled with the smell of racing fuel and burning rubber!
The night started off with Marcie Maynard singing the National anthem in front of 4600 anxious NASCAR racing fans followed by four of Arizona's finest short track Stock Car aces! After the dust had settled Tucson's own Dustin Jones had won the four lap Trophy Dash!
With an all new racing format that demanded good results in the evenings heat races to ensure a good starting position in the nights feature events, the racing in those 8 lap heats was fast and furious. Seven classes competing for over $10,000.00 in purse and 5% in NASCAR Point fund dollars resulted in feature events that kept fans on the edge of their seats throughout the evening.
The features started with Austin Tribelcock winning the Bandolero race and Matt Williams dominating the popular Legends feature. The NASCAR Mini Stocks were hotly contested by father and son with the older and wiser Jim Bates taking home the glory! Ben Shepherd thrilled the standing crowd with a last lap, last turn pass of Brian Herrington Jr. to win his first feature event and the first for a Ford at Tucson Raceway Park since the days of Bill Cheesbourg. Billy Johanneck bested 2005 Tucson Raceway Park champion P.J. Megna by just inches in the Grand American Modified feature. Matt Levin continued to show his driving talents in Alan Levin's bright orange NASCAR Late Model. "Stormin" Ron Norman again showed why he has won many features and championships by narrowly beating the popular Chad Bowden and hard charging Matt Levin in the 40 lap Super Late Model feature.
With the support of Mother Nature, Tucsonans can look forward to fifteen more action packed nights of racing at Arizona's only paved NASCAR short track in 2006.
