RAMAKER FINDS SUCCESS IN NEW RIDE

Source: Andrew Kunas
Date: 09/29/2006

Enter Joe Ramaker.

The former Montana resident who now calls Boise, Idaho home hopped into his friend’s car and won right off the bat. In eight A-Main starts, “Smokin’ Joe” has seven top ten finishes which include six top fives and three victories.

Ramaker, an accomplished racer who has several wins to his credit, and Saumure have been friends since Ramaker’s Can-Am Challenge victory at Castrol Raceway (a.k.a. Capital Raceway) in Edmonton in 2001.

“I have the video from the Can-Am and I remember him on the front stretch cheering like he’d won it, and we’ve been good friends since then,” Ramaker said following his third place run in Saturday’s Northern Sprint Tour finale at Central Washington State Fair Raceway in Yakima.

Ramaker actually tried out for the Winterhawk Motorsports ride last year in an event at Bridge County Raceway in Lethbridge, Alb. Ramaker set fast time there, but the event was rained out following qualifying. Harkness, who was coming off a 360 sprint car championship at Skagit, raced his way into the ride soon after.

Racing against Harkness many times this year, Ramaker had the chance to speak with Saumure on many occasions. It was Saumure who called Ramaker in August when he and Harkness went their separate ways.

Ramaker flew to Alberta and in his first night with Saumure won the main event at Rapid Fire Motorsports Park in Drayton Valley, a place he had never raced at previously. It was a perfect fit, as Ramaker referred to it.

The following week, Ramaker finished second in the Big Sky Sprint Tour event at Gallatin Speedway in Belgrade, Mont. and won a weekly show at Edmonton the next night. Ramaker later swept an ASCS Rocky Mountain Regional event on Labor Day weekend at Electric City Speedway in Great Falls, Mont., one night after finishing fifth at the same track.

Outside of a crash in his second race with Saumure, Ramaker has yet to finish outside the top ten of an A-Main he has qualified for since the two joined forces. His worst A-Main finish with the wheels on the ground was a seventh place effort in last Friday’s event at Yakima, this after he spun earlier in the race after his helmet was splattered with oil from another car. When you throw out the crash at Drayton Valley his average A-Main finish over the other seven races he has qualified for is about 2.85.

Ramaker’s new ride, an Eagle chassis with a Shark engine from Northwest U.S.

legend Marc Huson, is a little different from his own, a J&J chassis.

“It’s excellent. It’s top notch and it’s well put together,” Ramaker said of the Saumure built cars. “We’ve got a Shark motor that really hits hard. It’s a standard Eagle car. I usually run J&J. Maybe next year we’ll get a couple J&J’s.”

It was also an easy transition from Ramaker’s own car into Saumure’s for the most part, though some learning is still being done.

“(It has) similar weight distribution front to rear with where the motor’s placed as the car I’ve been running, so it was an easy transition for me,”

Ramaker said, “although the wheelbase is shorter, so it flies the front end pretty easy. As a matter of fact, the second night out with it (at Drayton

Valley) I wheelied so hard that it flipped all by itself. It was flipped over backwards like a non-wing 410.”

“It was amazing, but it hurt bad,” Ramaker mused, “so I’ve gotta get used to the front end flying around a little bit.”

For the races in Yakima, Ramaker used the setup his friend Phil Dietz has for the track in Billings, and for Ramaker it resulted in a fast time in Friday’s qualifying session. However, a brake rotor problem resulted in setup problems for the rest of the evening.

“We thought the car was one way and we fixed the brake and adjusted it enough, but it was actually way too loose in the feature. We did OK, got seventh. (Saturday), we’ve been really good but were too tight for the feature. We couldn’t stay on the cushion. I’d run against it, then bounce off it, (and) run against it; and that’s not the fast way to run around this place.”

The Winterhawk Motorsports team will now try their luck in next week’s Pacific Sprint Fall Nationals at Silver Dollar Speedway in Chico, California. For Ramaker, it will be his first time at the famous and fast ¼-mile, high-banked clay oval. Last year’s event there drew 89 cars from around the west coast.

Ramaker has mixed feelings going into the big event.

“One, I’m really looking forward to it,” Ramaker said, “Two, I’m really worried we’re going to wreck the car. A lot of equipment gets tore up in California. It’s a big money show, it’s the end of the year, and there are a lot of paid drivers down there. That makes for a combination of hard driving, that’s for sure.”

Ramaker intends to do a little more travel with his own equipment after Chico and race his 410 car in the World of Outlaws finale at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in Nevada on October 27 and 28 and then take the wings off and race with the USAC National and USAC/CRA sprint cars at in the Oval Nationals at Perris Auto Speedway in Perris, Calif. on November 2, 3, and 4.

“It’s non-wing, so I’m looking forward to that,” Ramaker said about the big event at southern California’s premier dirt track facility.

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Joe Ramaker’s A-Main starts since joining Richard Saumure:

August 18 – Drayton Valley, Alberta (Platinum Cup preliminary): 1st August 19 – Drayton Valley, Alberta (Alberta Sprint Tour): 15th (crash) August 25 – Belgrade, MT (Big Sky Sprint Tour): 2nd (won heat race) August 26 – Edmonton, Alberta (Weekly show): 1st September 2 – Great Falls, MT (ASCS-RM): 5th September 3 – Great Falls, MT (ASCS-RM): 1st (swept program) September 22 – Yakima, WA (NoST): 7th (fast qualifier) September 23 – Yakima, WA (NoST): 3rd (won heat race)

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