Taking advantage of the big NASCAR weekend at the nearby California Speedway, the Orange Show Speedway, located in San Bernardino, treated its fans to a very special Friday night of racing, September 3d, featuring ASA sanctioned action from seven different divisions.
One of the evening's highlights was an appearance by the Soboba Casino ASA Pro 4's. These full bodied stock cars, with high end four cylinder engines, set lap times around the Orange Show quarter mile oval equal to full powered late models and are a huge fan favorite.
San Bernardino's Chris Hayes led the starters under the green flag and paced the field for the first 13 laps before Redland's Dennis Andrews made an exquisite pass on the low side, coming off of turn two, to take the lead for good. The field had one shot to do something with the leader, following the one and only yellow flag on lap 36, but Andrews would have anything to do with it and again roared away from the field. Tim Carruthers, Eddie Secord, Rex Lockwood and Jeremy Edwards rounded out the top five. In victory lane a very happy Andrews thanked his crew and the fans adding "we did good tonight and I'm very happy."
Another big part of this special Friday night at the Orange Show was the 75 lap ASA Pure Stock Classic. Condsidering the wild and wooly ways of this basic bomber stock racing class, the Orange Show fans were jazzed up to see them do 75 laps. So, imagine everyone's surprise when the Pure Stocks ran 36 full laps without a caution. Many Orange Show observers thought it might actually be a series record.
Justin Goode jumped into the lead on the first lap and held the point until lap 29 when he was tapped by Paul Vitale. Goode recovered quickly, and no caution flag was necessary, but he lost a lot of track position. Vitale did a stop and go in the pits and also lost track position. This would mark the first of four incidents involving Vitale in what turned out to be a long night for him.
Jeff Elder took over the lead and had to endure 4 yellow flags, from laps 36 to 62, and then had to fend off a hard charge from Goode at the finish who had worked his way through the pack following his earlier spin.
Elder scored his first series win with Goode right on his bumper. The husband and wife team of Michelle and Jimmy Rouse finished third and fourth.
In the Legends Cars event Jim Smith won the 25 lap feature and in victory lane thanked the "Flying Hawaiian" for his help and his wife for putting up with all of the racing. He also promised the fans he would practice his burn outs before is next win. Austin Grabowski and Tom Landreth followed him across the line in a close finish.
The ASA Stock Pony feature was a wild affair that featured two efforts to get the race started and five caution flags in 25 laps. The first effort to start this race resuled in a three car spin on the backstretch. The second effort resulted in a three car pile up on the backstretch.
In fact, the Stock Pony drivers only made one official green flag lap before the first of the five cautions surfaced. The most significant of the yellow flags came on lap 10 when Chuck Becker and Mark Shackleford got together on the front stretch. Shackleford's Ford Pinto spun around and hit the wall hard on the driver's side. He had to get a push start to refire the engine and then limped to the pits with a shredded left rear tire.
By lap 13 Jim Edministon was in command of the race and appeared to be on the way to victory lane. However, Shackleford had other ideas. The Riverside driver quickly roared through the field and took the lead with three laps to go.
In post race comments Shackleford looked at his battered car and laughed saying "I think the car actually ran better,(after the wreck), we should have done this a long time ago." Edministon finished second while Eddie Collins, Kyle Burns and Lyndsey White rounded out the top five.
The Orange Show Speedway's scale racing divisions were also on hand for the specail Friday night show. In the Bandeleros main event Lancaster's "Awesome" Austin Murphy won the 20 lap feature flag to flag. His brother, Brock Murphy, was second followed by Andre Prescott, Jimmy Rouse and Ryan Bragdon.
In the Scale Racing League's Mini Stock Car Senior Division Dean Caskey took the lead on lap five and won the 20 lap feature. Nick Wilhite, Doug Evans, Kit Cooney and John Brown completed the top five.
In Mini Stock Car Junior Division action Sean Evans took the lead on lap 18 and survived a green-white-checker finish for his first win of the year. In victory lane the young man thanked Mom and Dad and yelled "you guys rock." Brent Scheidermantle, Robbie Ragains, Scotty Brown and Kyle McGrady rounded out the top five.
