ANOTHER NIGHT OF HOT ASA RACING ACTION AT THE HAVASU 95 SPEEDWAY.

Source: Dave Grayson
Date: 10/05/2008

ASA sanctioned stock car racing returned to the Havasu 95 Speedway, in Lake Havasu City-Arizona, on October 4th. and treated a large crowd of race fans to high flying action from the ASA Street Stocks, Inex Bandoleros, factory stocks and a 75 lap feature race from the visiting SuperClean Modified Racing Series on the most scenic quarter mile paved oval in the southwest. This night of racing at the Havasu 95 Speedway was sponsored by Murphy Broadcasting. The big winners of the evening were:

ASA Street Stocks: Ralph Adams

JJ&B Racing Bandolero Young Guns A main: Tom Kelley. Bandits B main: Jacob Tilton

ASA Factory Stocks: Jose Guevarra

Super Clean Modified Series: Jimmy Dickerson

In ASA Street Stock action Ralph Adams returned to his winning ways by taking the 30 lap feature in a race that often had the leaders running door to door. Rick Layman and Gary Felish led the starters under the initial green flag and ran side by side for three laps before Felish eventually took command of the race. It appeared that Felish was well on his way to his second consecutive win but Adams had other ideas. On lap 22 Adams passed Felish for the lead. Unfortunately it didn't count because the yellow flag came out, due to a spinning car on turn two, that nullified the pass for the lead. Official speedway rules states that the cars do not race back to the yellow and the field is reset based on the scoring from the previous completed green flag. lap. That put Felish back into the lead when the race restarted. But Adams wasn' going to have anything to do with that and on the restart pulled along side of Felish and made a low line pass in what turned out to be the race winning move. Layman followed Felish under the checkers to take third. Rick Maddox Jr crossed the line in fourth. However later speedway officials announced that the Maddox car failed to pass post race tech inspection, due to reported unapproved engine parts. and his finish was disallowed. That moved Nathan Hvodal up to fourth.

The youngsters in their small, but very fast, JJ&B Racing Bandoleros were also a big part of this evening and treated the fans so some exciting racing. The Bandolero A Main was won by Lake Havasu City's Tom Kelley who came off of the front row and completely dominated the race by leading the 15 lap event flag to flag. Alex Morgan, Kyle Niquette, Trent Kassik, Breanna Nelson and Patrick Camburn followed him under the checkers. Jacob Tilton won the Bandolero B feature. Carter Badhe, Ryan Cansdale and Daryn Keirns followed. In the preliminary events Tilton and Morgan won heat races while Shelby Orozco won the trophy dash.

The always fun Factory Stockers put on their usual slam bang show in front of a very appreciative crowd who loves what they do. Jose Guevarra led the race flag to flag for his first feature win of the season. Jeff Reid, Dale Clement, Scot Allen and Mark Berlant completed the top five. The highly unusual aspect about the race was the fact that there were only two caution flags. In the preliminary events Guevarra and Clement won heat races while Lisa Snell won the trophy dash.

The highlight of the evening was round eight of the SuperClean Modified Racing Series who ran a 75 lap feature presented by Sunoco Race Fuels. El Cajon-California's Jimmy Dickerson completely dominated this event with an extremely well prepared car to win his fourth race in the ten race series. Andrew Phipps,a three time winner, the series' points leader and Dickerson's main rival for the series championship, finished second while Chris Gerchman, Danny Gay and Larry Gerchman completed the top five.

This race had a rather uncharacteristically high seven caution flags. While the drivers from this series always race close and hard it's rather rare when they get into each and create multiple caution flags the way they did on this night. The most bizarre of these caution flags, and the one incident that everyone was talking about after the race, came on lap 56 when Randy Ussery spun on the backstretch after being hit from behind. During the course of getting the line up back in order, Ussery circled the track at a high rate of speed and rammed the car driven by Billy Johanneck. The hit was so hard that the left side tires of Johanneck's car actually came off of the ground. It was believed that Ussery felt his spin was retaliation from another incident between the two drivers during the early portion of the race. Ussery then drove his car onto to pit road. Much to every one's surprise an extremely angry Johanneck climbed out of his car and began chasing Ussery's car down pit road. The makings of a very tense situation was alleviated by quick action from the speedway's security team and SuperClean Modified Series officials. Neither driver was allowed to get near each other and cooler heads soon prevailed within a matter of minutes

After the race series co-promoter Greg Scheidecker said "tonight I think we saw a situation where tempers and attitudes surfaced because the racing in this series is so hard and so competitive. Bill Rozhon, the other series co-promoter, said "sometimes the racing side shows up and some one's brains fall out. When that happens it's our job to try to police that. We've got some decisions to make right around the first of next week regarding what happened on the track tonight." Both men agree that something has to be done regarding this incident and penalties are expected to be announced soon.

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