The Willow Springs Speedway, a quarter mile paved oval located in the mammoth Willow Springs International Raceway complex in Rosamond, California, presented a full evening of racing, September 9th, that included a special appearance by the Hollywood Stuntmen.
Most of the time the world of these show business professionals are spent at film locations, and television sound stages, where they crash cars, get beat up in fights and fall off of tall buildings. But a few times a year, during a weekend off, they like to visit racetracks where they have a lot of fun, blow off a little show business steam and put on a highly unique racing program in street stock cars they prepared themselves.
Group spokesman John-Clay Scott said that some of the race teams were not able to make it to the Willow Springs Speedway because they were called to work. With a smile on his face, Scott said "some of our guys are in the nearby community of Acton getting beat up, bloodied and even killed on the set of a monster movie. There's also a few of our guys busy this weekend working on "Pirates Of The Carribean 3" with Johnny Depp."
The first unique thing you notice is the fact there are two people in the cars: a driver and a rider. It's the rider's duty to point out little things like "there's a car on the outside fixing to ram us". The riders are, in fact, like having in car spotters. Their races are split into two segments with a brief intermission to allow for repairs. Then the second driver takes over for the final race segment.The other unique thing here is the fact that the entire track is soaked with a water truck just to make things a little more interesting.
Also making things interesting is the presence of the jam car. In the case of this particular evening, the jam car was a bright orange early 70's model Cadillac with a flashing emergency light bar on top of it. The driver of the jam car was working under the name of Ivan The Terrible. The jam car cruises down the middle of the track at an even pace of 40 MPH and presents an extra challenging obstacle for the drivers because they not allowed to touch this car. Contact with the jam car brings an automatic black flag penalty. It's also the jam car's duty to quickly push any stalled cars to a safe area because these stunt drivers are not fond of slowing down for yellow caution flags.
With the green flag flying in the air, it was obvious from the very beginning that two cars were going to be very strong: the drving team of John-Clay Scott and Rick Downes along with the tandem of Erik Stabenau and Matt Taylor. The Scott-Downes team led the first 38 laps, in some very close racing, before Stabenau-Taylor overtook them and held the point to the checkered flag to conclude the first 50 lap segment.
Following the intermission and a fresh load of water on the track, the teams lined up for the second 50 lap segment. Sadly, the good first segment run from Stabenau-Taylor was not going to repeat itself. The car suffered some early lap spinouts and soon went a lap down. The Scott-Downes team, with Downes now behind the wheel, took command of the race on the second lap and never looked back. By the time the car passed under the checkered flag they had at least a one lap lead over the entire field.
In victory lane a very happy Downes said "this car was good, very good. It was a little tight but it was really fast. I love the water. I love racing on a wet track it really keeps you on your toes." An equally happy Scott said "we had this car hooked up. It was wetter than wet tonight and we had to really work it through the corners but we were able to pull it off thanks to our primary sponsor MARS: Mineral Aggregrate Recycling Service." Scott had a very special rider with him, during the first 50 lap segment, and said "I had my son, Curtis Scott, with me and it was his first time in a race car and he did great."
While the Hollywood Stuntmen may have been the feature act, there was also plenty of exciting racing from the Willow Springs Speedway's regular divisions as well. This was especially true of the Super Sportsman Division when Alex Anderson won his second feature of the year in a hard fought race.
John Penning led the field under the initial green flag and appeared to be on his way to dominating the 35 lap feature. However, Anderson was on his back bumper the entire way and put on a relentless challenge that finally worked, on lap 24, when Penning wiggled loose, in turn three, and left just enough room for Anderson to squeeze by on the inside.
Series points leader Chris Peedan made quick work of taking over second and even faster work of chasing down Anderson in what appeared to be an end of the race shootout. Peedan, in pursuit of his seventh feature win of the year, had to work his way through the field from dead last after lap one contact sent him spinning around in turn two. Unfortunately lightning struck Peedan again in this race. This time it came on lap 28 when his car was hit by Gene Fife and, once again, Peedan found himself doing a 360 in turn two.
That's all Anderson needed to see and he made quick work of running out the final laps to take the win. Penning, Randy Wilkins, Peedan and Henry Miles followed him under the checkers. Earlier in the evening Wilkins won the division's trophy dash.
Commenting on the hard fought victory, the young Rosamond driver said "we just lucky because the 10 car, (Miles), was there and the 30 car, (Penning) tried to drive underneath him. I was being patient and figured I would just follow them around because I felt I definitely had the more dominant car. I got into him, (Penning), a couple of times harder than maybe I should have but I just stopped and waited for him to gather it up and we just ran away from everyone for a little while. Then Peedan caught me and gave me a hell of a bump but we just kept on going and finally I nudged him, (Penning), and he got a little loose and when we went into turn three he got a little loose again and I drove underneath him." Anderson made it point to say a special thank you to his crew chief, and good friend, Johnny Reiman as well as his primary sponsor and race consultant: veteran driver Richard Hooper. He especially made it a point to thank his mom, and number one supporter, Charla
Technically speaking, Gene Fife passed under the checkers to take second but he was in this race under the agreement that he was not running for position, purse or points because his car was actually a late model. Fife was at the Willow Springs Speedway to shake down, under competition measures, a brand new car he and his team has just recently built.
When asked if the new car was everything he was hoping for Fife said "the car worked really well. We had a slight advantage with our tires we had on so they wouldn't let us run for any money or points. We were just our running the new car starting in the back of the field and they told us we could pass. There was this one little altercation but it really wasn't that big of a deal. Overall the new was really good."
The track champion, from the former Mesa Marin Raceway in Bakersfield, said the team had plans to run some Late Model shows at the Orange Show and Irwindale Speedways plus some return trips to the Willow Springs Speedway.
The I-4/I-6 Outlaw Modifieds were also on hand at the Willow Springs Speedway. In their feature race Ric Bronson quickly jumped into the lead and was soon joined by series points leader Jeffrey Goddard. After a torrid duel, Goddard was able to take the lead for good on lap 8. Bronson made a strong effort to retake the lead but came off of turn two a little too hot and had to back off of the throttle to get the car straight again. That's all Goddard needed to see and he ran out the remaining laps for his fourth feature win of the season. Bronson, Bryan Rungaitis and Walter Hobbs followed him under the checkers. Goddard also won the trophy dash earlier in the evening.
In victory lane Goddard said "I just love racing here at the Willow Springs Speedway. They always give us plenty of practice time here. We can even come out here in the middle of the week to practice and get our car set up for the weekend."
Also present, on this Saturday night at the Willow Springs Speedway, was the Lightning Cup cars which are miniature replicas of NASCAR Nextel Cup machines. In the Senior Division Michael O'Hara spent the first two laps of the race dueling with series points leader Dean Caskey before he took the lead for good and won his first feature of the year. Caskey, Stephan Cathey, Patty Caskey, Kim Williams, Dick Laycock and Rick Walton followed him under the checkers. Patty Caskey won the division's trophy dash.
After the race O"Hara said "we bolted on right side tires and it cured our little mishandling from earlier in the day and the results speak for themselves." The O'Haras are just one of the many families involved in Lightning Cup racing. Pointing at his son Matthew, Mike O'Hara said with a smile "that's the real driver right there. He had a bad crash in the car and stepped out of it tonight so I stepped in it because I wasn't presently racing anything and we're having a great time."
In the Junior Division series points leader Joey McKeag passed Benjamin Mahan, on lap seven, to take the lead for good and win his fourth feature of the season. Kalvin Smith was third followed by Toby Becker, Brandon Rinehart and Alexander Bissett. McKeag also won the trophy dash.
