Make no mistake about it, Jimmy Dickerson knows the lay of the land at the Lucas Oil I 10 Speedway in the same manner that he knows his name and address. The El Cajon-California driver more than proved that point October 18th when he completely dominated round nine of the SuperClean Modified Racing Series at the quarter mile paved oval located at the Colorado River Fairgrounds in Blythe-California. Dickerson's performance was formidable and he led all but three laps of the Blue Water Resort and Casino 75 en route to his fifth series win of 2008. Dickerson also picked up a vital ten points on the series points leader, and his season rival, Andrew Phipps.
From the qualifying session, held earlier that day, it was apparent that the Blue Water Resort and Casino 75 was going to be a highly competitive race. The entire field was separated by approximately 1.9 seconds from the fastest to the slowest car. The Budweiser Pole Award, as well as the $100 bonus, went to Danny Gay, Dickerson's team mate who toured the speedway's quarter mile oval with an impressive lap of 14.613 seconds.
However the pre race roll of the inversion dice turned up the number four and that put Chris Gerchman and Dickerson on the front row for the race. Gerchman led the full field of SuperClean Modified under the initial green flag and paced the field for three circuits before Dickerson caught him with a low line pass coming off of turn four. It turned out to be the winning move of the race.
The real focal point of this race was the points championship and whether or not Dickerson would be able to gain on the points lead held by Phipps. Prior to the race Dickerson conceded that it was going to take Phipps having a hard luck race if he was going to be able to win the series championship.
That hard luck moment actually happened on lap 12 of the race. Phipps, riding third at the time, was tagged in the left rear quarter panel by Danny Gay and that caused him to spin across the bottom of turn one. Both cars were relocated to the rear of the field due to their involvement in the need for the caution flag. Phipps now found himself in the frustrating position of restarting in 15th while his season championship rival was still leading the race.
The Blue Water Resort and Casino 75 would also turn out to be a horrible race for Danny Gay who somehow found himself involved in three of the four yellow flags in this race. The San Diego area driver, and the 2007 series champion, found himself returning to the end of the lead lap 31 following some contact that caused Larry Gerchman's car to spin through the second turn. Five laps past the ensuing restart Gay found himself taking a sideways ride into turn three where he crashed into the side of the car driven by Randy Forbis.
Meanwhile Jimmy Dickerson was practically driving in a different zip code from the rest of the field. He was receiving outstanding cooperation from the lapped traffic and by lap 49 held a full straightaway lead over James Cole who was riding in second. But that lead was eradicated when the final caution flag of the race came out on lap 65 due to the presence of a stalled car at the base of turn two.
It was seemingly Cole's final chance to run down the race leader and create an opportunity to score his first series win. However Dickerson wasn't going to have anything to do with those plans. With the field under green for the final ten laps, Dickerson ripped off a flawless restart and four laps later he held a half a straightaway lead. That's exactly how it ended as Dickerson raced under the checkers with Cole following him in second. Mike Salm, who won the trophy dash earlier in the evening, finished third while Chris Gerchman and Tim Morse completed the top five. Andrew Phipps reclaimed some potentially lost championship points by racing his way back to sixth.
After parking his modified in the Lucas Oil I 10 Speedway's victory lane the very happy race winner said "this car was just awesome. Earlier in the day we didn't have a very good qualifying run but that's because I screwed up by overdriving the car. The only change we made to the car from qualifying was a sixteenth on the bar and that created a night and day difference. Then all I had to do was settle down a little bit and drive the thing. We had to be a litle careful out there but the lapped traffic was awesome tonight. They gave me plenty of room to race."
James Cole was equally excited about his second place finish and said "we hit on some things right after the trophy dash. My car owner Jim Wilkerson, my uncle Walt Cole and my dad Jim Cole really went to town on some research because we had some issues from the trophy dash and had some things that just wasn't working right on the suspension. They got to the bottom of it, we went back out there and the car was working like a rocket ship right from the git go. We just kept moving through the field and it felt awesome.
Cole travels in from San Antonio-Texas to make the SuperClean Modified Series event. When asked about the frequent flyer miles that he logging the driver laughed and said "I've got quite a bit now. There's about four or five of us who fly out here to help out on this team. It's a little bit of a tough battle to do that but I think it's finally all coming together and we're really presenting a solid team effort every time and I think it's really showing on the track and in our results."
Circumstances has kept Mike Salm away from the series for the last two races but he came back strong at this race and scored a third place finish. Commenting on his night at the Lucas Oil I 10 Speedway he said "it's really nice to be back. We just had something we had to do of a personal nature but it's good to be back. We won the trophy dash tonight which was fun. We did pretty good in the main but Danny Gay had some problems with that spin out with Phipps and we moved up. We basically had a sixth place car tonight but we got to move up and then held our own. Maybe we can win the next one out here."
The stage is now set for the tenth and final round of the SuperClean Modified Racing Series which will also be held at the Lucas Oil I 10 Speedway in Blythe on November 8th.
In addition to their title sponsor the SuperClean Modified Racing Series is strongly supported by a highly potent marketing concept known as "Team Lucas" which includes Lucas Oil Products Inc, Hoosier Racing Tire, Jim Beam, K&N Performance Filters, Blue Water Resort and Casino, General Tire, Fatheadz Sunglasses, Dixie Chopper, Sencon Concrete LLC, Poly Dome Plastic Products, Sunoco Race Fuels, R&L Carriers, Ec Spark Plugs and Budweiser.
