Don Kerr had hoped to be challenging for the late model sportsman championship at Cajon Speedway this year. But instead after the first month and a half of the season, the 20-year-old San Diego State University sophomore is trying to dig himself out of a deep hole. Call it bad racing luck or a sophomore jinx. Whatever, Kerr finds himself well down in the points chase as the stock cars prepare for this Saturday night's race at the 3/8 mile paved oval. Race time is 6:45 PM. Qualifying runs start at 5:15 PM.
Sharing the Gillespie Field pavement with the late model sportsman will be the Grand American modifieds, street stocks, and pony stocks along with the Mazdas. The night will conclude with the monthly Train race. Kerr's first four races of the season can only be called traumatic. His motor sucked a valve in practice so he was unable to even start the season opening Coors Light 100 in March. Then in the first points race of the season, a leaking rear end gasket knocked him out of a fourth place finish. Then on April 8, a broken seal on the rear of the transmission sent him to the pits and denied him victory.
The worst was yet to come. Kerr was riding along comfortably in second place on April 15 when a tire went flat on lap 33 of the 40-lap feature. The blown tire took out the panhard bar, which in turn took out the rear end. This resulted in gear oil being dumped all over the track. Kerr's Grand Prix lost traction on the now slippery track surface. Unfortunately six other cars also skidded through the slick stuff and piled into each other and the crashwall. After sitting out the April 22 race, Kerr rebounded by scoring a wire-to-wire victory on May 6. He also missed last week's contest since his father, who is also his crew chief, was out of town.
Kerr had approached the season optimistically. "The last sophomore jinx I had, I won a championship," the 20-year-old San Diego native laughed as he discussed the situation here prior to the beginning of the season. "The way it worked the last time I ran two years in one car was I finished seventh (the first year) and then came back and won the championship. I finished seventh last year and hopefully that means I can come back and win a championship this year."
Kerr's championship came in the dwarf cars before he turned his attention to Cajon's Saturday night fare. This is his fourth season tackling the pavement. He was the rookie of the year in the late model sportsman class last year and he won two main events; he had been the top Grand American modified rookie the previous season. Ironically he finished seventh in both the modified standings in 1998 and the late model sportsman standings a year ago.
Now however he is buried back in 9th position in the standings. At this
point, he has nowhere to go but up - that is unless his back luck returns.
He hopes May 6 was an omen and not just an aberration.
