ELMA, Washington — Seth Bergman of Snohomish, WA. picked up his first “360 Wingless Sprints” feature win and Chris Beaulieu of Campbell river, B.C. got his first feature win in the Northern Provincial Pipeline “Late Model super Stocks Saturday night at Grays Harbor Raceway on the opening night of the Big “E” weekend.
Bergman made a late race pass on Tacoma’s Shawn Rice in “Wingless Sprints” 30 lap feature while Beaulieu got by pole sitter Mike Tom of Stoney Plain, Alberta on the third lap of the Northern Provincial Pipeline “Late Model Super Stocks” 30-lap feature race.
Sprints
Bergman is no stranger to sprint car racing, normally you would find him behind the wheel of a winged “360 Sprint” car, but tonight was the exception as he decided to try his hand in a car sans the familiar wing.
Bergman started the race in the second row alongside Grays Harbor Raceway regular Dan Dunlap of Renton and behind front row cars, Jeff Bell of Marysville and Nick Tomlinson of Newburg, OR.
Bell set a fast pace, followed by Dunlap, Rice, Bergman and Snohomish’s John Tharp as Tomlinson got shuffled out of the top five in the first lap.
Bell ran into trouble when he got into slower traffic on lap-7 and got tangled up with Mark Herz of Sandy, OR. and had to go to the pits to replace a flat tire.
Dunlap then inherited on the restart, followed by Bergman, Rice, Tharp and Tomlinson.
Rice made a nifty move on lap-12 when both Dunlap and Bergman went high in turn-1 and the Tacoma driver dove to the inside to pass both of them.
Dunlap dropped out of the hunt when he had to go to the pits for repairs on lap-16.
Rice and Bergman played a cat and mouse game before Bergman was able to get by him on lap-25 and then hold Rice off to the end.
Kyle Miller of Eugene, OR. finished third, Gary Davis of Salem, OR. fourth and Mike Romig of Vancouver, WA. fifth.
Racing was delayed earlier in the evening during the Sprint Car trophy when Shelton’s Jay Cole took an unscheduled flight over the wall in turn-4. Cole, the defending “360 Sprints” champion at the Elma track was unhurt, but the race car is now in need of a lot of repair work.
Late Models
Beaulieu must have asked his father, Jason, if he could borrow the car this Saturday night, as Jason Beaulieu normally would be behind the wheel, but he was in Medford, OR. for a modified race. Things worked out well though as the younger Beaulieu had no problem in the race.
Once Beaulieu got by Tom, it was all over but the shouting as he was never really challenged from the third lap on.
All he had to do was survive three caution flag restarts on laps 4, 18 and 28 to secure his first ever feature win.
With Beaulieu well out in front of the pack, it was left to the rest of the pack to fight over the left-over’s.
Tom had engine problems and was done for the night on lap-6, which put Dwight Kennedy of Edson, Alberta in the second spot, Kevin Clark of Altario, Alberta third, Rod Wilde of Whitecourt, Ab. Fourth and Crystal Kennedy fifth.
Clark left the race on lap-26 with engine problems.
Dwight Kennedy took second, Wilde third, Crystal Kennedy fourth and Darrell Midgley of Sidney, B.C fifth.
