SWINDELL AND HOCKETT WIN FRIDAY NIGHT WESTERN WORLD FEATURES AT MANZANIT SPEEDWAY

Kevin Swindell and Jesse Hockett won their respective main events in Friday night’s NAPA/Budweiser/Parker Store Western World Championships at Manzanita Speedway but Jerry Coons, Jr. and Jeremy Sherman did the most celebrating.

Coons became the USAC Silver Crown champion Thursday at P.I.R. and his fifth place finish in Friday night’s 25 feature made him only the fifth driver in USAC history to win all three USAC divisions. He won the Midget title the past two year. Coons who hails from Tucson is the second Arizona driver to accomplish the feat. JJ Yeley of Phoenix won all three divisions in the same year as did Tony Stewart. Sherman celebrated a fourth consecutive Arizona Sprint Car championship with a third place finish in the American Sprint Car Series 20 lap main event.

Charles Davis Jr. shot out of the second row and took the lead in the Discount Tire American Sprint Car Series on the first lap. He steadily pulled away from the field but yellow flags kept the field close. Hockett, Davis’ team mate on the Massey Motorsports team, was methodically working his way toward the front after starting ninth. He finally worked his way into second and despite numerous efforts to take the lead he was not successful. Davis was running the high side and even though Hockett made a pass entering turn two and slid wide Davis would make a cut back move and held the lead until a late yellow flag again slowed the pace. On the restart the battle began again and Hockett finally took the lead with just two laps remaining. Gary Taylor who finished second Thursday night was fourth under the checkered flag just in front of Mike Leslie. Rounding out the top ten were Brad Sweet, Nathan High, Casey Shuman, Josh Pelkey and Andy Reinbold.

Heat races went to Sherman, Derek Williams, Pelkey, Mike Martin and Brady Bacon. R.J. Johnson and Jeremy Reagles won the two semi mains.

After scoring his second win of the weekend Hockett had the adrenaline surging and beat Shane Cottle into the first turn and pulled away. Cottle hung onto second as Swindell was making his move after starting sixth. He finally dropped Cottle into second and went to work on Hockett. Traffic was in play for most of the 25 laps and Swindell finally found an opening and wrested the lead from Hockett on the 16th lap. Hockett stayed close and crossed the finish line about five car lengths behind. In spite of starting 28 cars in the race it was run without a yellow flag and Swindell stopped the clock with a time of 9:08.87 which averaged out to 83.217 m.p.h. The overall 410 record is held by Jerry Coons, Jr. who set a mark of 8:10.81 in the 2005 Western.

Levi Jones finished third after starting ninth and Cottle was fourth in front of Coons. The rest of the top ten were Jeremy Sherman, Bud Kaeding, Tracy Hines, Brad Sweet and Mike Spencer.

The ten lap heat races were won Hagen, Swindell, R.J. Johnson, Danny Sheridan and Rick Ziehl. Morgan won the 12 laps semi and J.J. Yeley topped the field in the eight lap "C" main. The "C" main was hard to get started as Nadine Gardner flipped getting into the first turn. She was okay and once the track was cleared flagman Jeff Stetson displayed the green again. This time Daron Clayton did a series of flips. He was okay and after again clearing the track the field took green but action was again halted when Keith Williamsom flipped in turn three on the restart. The fourth heat also had problems as Damion Gardner and Jeff Bland, Jr. flipped. They were not injured.

A total of 116 cars made for a long night as the USAC cars qualified their 64 car field and then each division ran five heats. In addition the ASCS ran two semi mains and USAC ran one.

Brad Sweet was the quickest qualifier as he stopped the clock at 18.473. Forty cars qualified within a second of Sweet’s timed lap.