REDWOOD ACRES RACEWAY BACK IN ACTION

Source: Jessica Middleton/Jaison Chand
Date: 04/20/2004

The Real Stock class saw a great turnout as well, with 19 cars arriving to vie for the Checkered Flag. No new faces yet, but lots of new paint schemes & car makes/models made for a challenging first points race of the season for all. The #03 Bill Bradbury was the first to catch a piece of the wall in practice laps. “We’ll be back!” Bill said upon returning to the pits. Fastest qualifier of the night was the #55, driven this weekend by Bob Lima (the same car driven last year to a second place points finish by Sportsman Rookie Donnie Brown). However, the first Win of the season was given to the #29 of Lissa Uselton in the Trophy Dash. Heat race winners, #82 Trevor Miller and #51 Cecil Arispy dominated their races; Arispe making a bold move at the start, sliding his way between the front two cars to take an early lead in his race. The main event saw all 18 cars starting, and definitely had the crowd on their feet at times. Arispe, once again, took a dominate lead early on, but saw the demise of that lead when his engine overheated, and blew water on the track. Once the Green flag flew again, the #82 of Miller, the #55 of Lima, and the #29 of Uselton dominated the small front pack of cars, also including the #11 of Bill Middleton, and the #90 of Joe McDonald. A late race crash caught Miller in its wake, sending him to the dirt and putting him a lap down by the time the yellow flag flew. When the race was called early on a count of time, the checkered flag was given to Lima, his first main event win. The top 5 rounded out with the #29 of Lissa Uselton in 2nd, the #62 of Troy Wood in 3rd, the #11 of Bill Middleton in 4th, and the #90 of Joe McDonald in 5th. (McDonald is appearing this year in the same car driven by last years points champ, Rookie Sportsman Driver Aaron Byers, minus the Byers paint scheme). For full race results, news and points visit www.racintheacres.com the unofficial site for Redwood Acres Raceway.

After struggling last year to get the new Toyota Pickup going, Jerry Peterson started the year by setting fast time. Jerry's won a lot of races at Redwood Acres. Everyone knew it was a matter of time before he put it together.

In the trophy dash, Glenn Bernald, who started on the outside pole made an easy pass on the outside of polesitter Frank Billy when one of Frank Billy's spark plugs broke on the first lap. Glenn held on for his first ever trophy dash win ahead of Frank Billy, Jerry Peterson and myself.

In the heat race, Craig Baker took an early lead. On lap 5 a caution came out when Jerry Peterson and Glenn Bernald got tangled up coming off of turn 4. I passed Craig on the outside with two laps to go and held on for the win followed by Jerry Peterson and Craig Baker.

In the main event Jerry Peterson, in his Toyota Pickup, jumped out to an early lead followed by Joe Bonomini and Craig Baker. Jerry Peterson's coil wire came off while he was leading the race and he passed the lead to Joe Bonomini who was black flagged 3 laps later for leaking oil on the track. When Bonomini was black flagged I had just passed Craig Baker and took over the lead. While Glenn Bernald was trying to pass Craig Baker for third place on the last lap, they tangled and ended up in the back straightaway wall partially blocking the track for the leaders coming around to take the checkered flag. I won the race followed by Frank Billy.

Joe Bonomini made an incredible showing considering he didn't appear at the track with his brand new Mustang II until after qualifying was over. His first laps in the new car were in the heat race where he was mounting an outside challenge to yours truly on lap 2. After Jerry went out of the race, the main event was his to win until he lost his rear main seal. I certainly wasn't going to catch him and pass him. I just received an email from him. He thinks he has the oil leak fixed and is ready to go for next Saturday.

Jerry Peterson was the guy to beat all night. Without his mechanical failure he would have had an easy win. For me, sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. Considering the first up to speed laps on my brand new mustang were in qualifying, and I never had the fastest car, I can hardly complain about a main event win and a heat race wins. Until you have built a car from the beginning, it's hard to appreciate how many things have to go right and how many untested 100,000 mile parts have to be problem free under racing conditions. We were fortunate that we got all of our problems fixed just in time to go racing.

We had a relatively small field of cars to start the year. Eight cars made it to the track and seven cars started the main event, but the competition between the top four or five cars is as good as it's been in the 12 years I've been involved with ministocks at Redwood Acres. Expect to see four or five different main event winners this year. For full race results, news and points visit www.racintheacres.com the unofficial site for Redwood Acres Raceway.

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