Nichols, Pierovich, and Vanderpool Reap Harvest Treasure

MADERA, California — The Open Wheel portion of Madera Speedway’s Annual Harvest Classic produced some exciting racing Saturday Evening on the 1/3 mile paved oval. The show featured USAC Western States Sprint Cars, BCRA Midgets, and Supermodifeds. Also on the card were the USAC West Coast Focus Midgets and the Focus Young Guns series, but those will be covered elsewhere.

The first featured class to challenge the banking was the Bay Cities Racing Association Midgets in time trials. Eight cars took times with Chad Nichols(17) setting the pace at 14.120 seconds followed by Nick Chivello(27) at 14.248 and Nick Foster(1) at 14.559.

Next up for Qualifications were the United States Auto Club Sprint Cars. Scott Pierovich(14) set fast time at 13.640 seconds followed by Tony Hunt(56) at 13.642 and Audra Sasselli(77) at 13.739.

The Supermodifieds were the final Open Wheel Class to challenge the clocks with Kyle Vanderpool(3) setting fast time at 12.686 seconds. Jim Birges(32) at 12.887 and Dave Bostrom(98) at 13.152 rounded out the top three. Dan Vanderpool and Kenny Kinchen did not take times due to practice incidents involving brake problems (Vanderpool) and a suspension failure and wall contact (Kinchen).

Head to head competition began with the BCRA Heat race. Gary Conterna was scheduled to go off the pole followed by Floyd Alvis, Michael Snider, Nick Foster, Jr. Nick Chivello, Chad Nichols, and Grant Koontz. Conterna elected to move to the rear and this moved the inside line forward. At the green Chivello and Nichols went three wide for two rows to get to the front. Chivello led lap one over Nichols, Snider, Foster, and Alvis. Nichols took the lead and Foster passed Snider on lap two. Lap three saw Alvis move Snider back another spot before Snider lost the left rear wheel and tire to bring out the yellow. The restart moved Conterna up to fifth and on lap five, Foster passed a slowing Chivello for second. Alvis got by Chivello on lap seven and Conterna did the same on the final lap. Finish was Nichols, Foster, Alvis, Conterna, and Chivello

The Sprint cars ran two eight lap heat races and the first lined up Don Emory and Gordon Rogers in Row one followed by Cody Gerhardt, Jeff Ensign, Audra Sasselli, and Scott Pierovich. Ensign jumped through the middle of row one and took the lead coming off turn two to lead lap one over Rogers, Sasselli, Gerhardt and Pierovich. Sasselli took second on lap two, Gerhardt grabbed third on lap three, and Pierovich took fourth on lap five. The final order was Ensign, Sasselli, Gerhardt, Pierovich, and Rogers.

Sprint Car heat number two featured Bill Logan, Tim Skoglund, Tim Barber, Chad Nichols, Tony Hunt, and David Diaz. Skoglund led lap one from his outside position with Hunt jumping to second from the third row followed by Barber, Nichols, and Logan. Hunt blasted to the lead on lap two. Barber got around Skoglund on the third circuit, when the yellow flew for Diaz coasting to a stop on the front stretch. Nichols took third on the lap four restart and that was the extent of the passing. Hunt took the lap eight checkers followed by Barber, Nichols, Skoglund, and Logan.

The Supermodified Eight lapper was scheduled to go with Kyle Vanderpool on the Pole, flanked by Jim Birges and followed by Dave Bostrom, Andy Ferris, Carl Johnson in his limited 360 Super, and Dan Vanderpool. Vanderpool’s brake problems had not been completely resolved and the result was wall contact in turn three during tire warming hot laps. Before the green flag, Bostrum opted to start in the rear as this was his first head to head Supermodified competition in nearly forty years. Birges got a great start at the drop of the green and led lap one over Vanderpool, Ferris, Johnson and Bostrum. Bostrum slowly worked out the passing lines and moved around Johnson on lap four and then took third when Ferris spun on lap six for a yellow/checkered finish. Birges took the heat over Vanderpool, Bostrum, Johnson, and Ferris.

The first Feature Event of the evening was the Midget 30 lapper. This race featured a six car invert with Gary Conterna and Floyd Alvis in row one. Michael Snider, Nick Foster, Jr., Nick Chivello, and Chad Nichols completed the invert. Rounding out the field were Grant Koontz and Rick Hollbrook. On the start, Nichols performed a disappering act in row three and magically reappeared in the front of the field on the backstretch. Nichols led lap one over Foster, Alvis, Chivello, and Snider. Chivello grabbed third from Alvis on circuit two and then displaced Foster from second on lap four. Meanwhile Nichols was headed for a different time zone. After ten laps, the order was Nichols, Chivello, Foster, Alvis, and Snider. Foster peeled off to the pits on lap eleven thereby elevating Conterna to fifth, albeit a lap down.

The second ten laps were uneventful except Nichols proceeded to lap the field except for Chivello in second place. The yellow finally flew on lap twenty-two when Conterna spun in turn four. On the restart, Chivello seemed to be able stay a little closer to Nichols, but could never challenge for the lead. At the finish, Nichols led Chivello by 2 seconds, with Alvis, Snider, and Holbrook rounding out the top five

The USAC Sprints started 12 cars for their feature with the top six inverted. Leading the fast guys was Tim Barber followed by Jeff Ensign, Chad Nichols, Audra Sasselli, Tony Hunt, and Scott Pierovich. Starting behind the invert were Cody Gerhardt, Tim Skoglund, Gordon Rogers, Bill Logan, Don Emory and David Diaz. The outside line won the initial battle with Ensign leading lap one over Barber, Sasselli, Nichols, and Pierovich. Pierovich took fourth on lap two. He then took third and Hunt took fifth on lap three. Pierovich was second by lap four and Hunt took fourth on lap five. Order at that time was Ensign, Pierovich, Barber, Hunt and Sasselli. Pierovich moved to the front and Sasselli reclaimed fourth a lap later and the top five after ten laps were Pierovich, Ensign, Barber, Sasselli and Hunt.

The second ten laps saw Sasselli displace Barber for third on lap eleven and then Hunt appropriated fourth on lap fourteen. Gerhardt then got Barber for fifth on lap twenty. At twenty laps, Pierovich held a commanding lead over Ensign, Sasselli, Hunt, and Gerhardt. The yellow finally flew on lap twenty two when Barber coasted to a stop with problems. A restart allowed Sasselli to get by Ensign into second and then another yellow flew for a spin by Rogers. This time Hunt got around Ensign on the restart. Order at the end of thirty laps was Pierovich, Sasselli, Hunt, Ensign, and Gerhardt. The lap forty order was identical and then Nichols passed Gerhardt on forty-one to move into the top five. And that was pretty much the race. The checkers flew on lap fifty with Pierovich leading Sasselli, Hunt, Ensign, and Nichols.

The Supermodified feature lined up the remaining five cars for a thirty lap gallop through time. Bets in the tower ranged from 6 minutes and forty seconds to seven minutes and thirty seconds for the time the race would take if it went nonstop. The lineup had Kyle Vanderpool and Jim Birges on row one followed by Carl Johnson, Andy Ferris, and Dave Bostrom. This time Vanderpool got the good start and led over Birges, Johnson, Ferris and Bostrum. Lap three saw both Ferris and Bostrum pass Johnson. And then Bostrum took third on lap ten. Order was Vanderpool, Birges, Bostrum, Ferris, and Johnson. Over the next twenty laps, the distance between Vanderpool and Birges accordianed back and forth, with Birges never able to mount a serious challenge for the lead. With these two lapping the entire field and Ferris heading to the pits on lap 26, the real excitement was how quickly they would finish. When it was over, Vanderpool had completed the thirty lapper in six minutes, 39.821 seconds. That made my guess of 6:40 look pretty good. Finish was Vanderpool, Birges, Bostrom, Johnson, and Ferris.

With races coming up in Anderson, Roseville and Irwindale over the next few weeks, it looks like I’ll be on the road a bit to cover the Californai Open Wheel Scene.