Erie, CO--The good: the pole and a new track record. The bad: big crash. The ugly: the race car.
All happened to M. K. Kanke Saturday night at Colorado National Speedway, the 13th stop on the NASCAR Featherlite Southwest Series Y2K season.
MK started off the evening"good" by breaking his own track record, turning the 3/8 mile mile oval in 15.839 sec. or 85.23 m.p.h.. His old record, set a year ago tomorrow, was 84.94 m.p.h..
Following presentations of the Bud Pole Award, (MK's 24th) and the Front Runner Award for leading the most laps last Sat. night at Sandia Motorsports Park in Albuquerque, NM., MK started the race outside the third row, the first six qualifiers having been inverted.
Coming down for the green flag, pole-sitter Kevin Clark was going as fast as his car went all night and he jumped into a three car lead going into turn one. Going by the flagstand for the first time MK found himself in 9th place. Lap 4, 8th. Lap 14, 7th. Lap 20, 6th. Lap 25, 5th. Then "the bad" lap 32 crash. MK and Mike Snow went for the same piece of real estate at the same time going into turn three resulting in MK, in front of 14,000 fans and 22 race cars going 80 m.p.h., getting sideways. In the ensuing melee involving several cars, the #87 Buyer's Choice - D. C. Engines Pontiac was drilled by someone, bending the rear frame crossmember and pushing the rear sheetmetal into an absolutely "ugly" position, like bent, and torn, and pushed up and caved in. Affecting the cars handling , MK would bounce around between 11th and 14th place where he finished when the rain came. ( Not a mild shower, but one in which crew members were looking for wood to build an Ark. ) The race was called after 72 of the scheduled 125 laps, with Auggie Vidovich picking up his second win in two weeks.
So Andy Anderson, Dennis Alderman and Dennis Olson, mechanics and
fabricators, have two weeks to put the car back togther before the Bonicelli Racing Team heads for
the 1/3 mile oval at California's Madera Speedway on Sept. 2 for a 100 lap feature event.
