Night number two for the East Bay Raceway Park Winter Nationals for Modifieds was held on Thursday night, January 27th and after a wild main event that had as many twists and turns as a cheap pulp novel, Kentucky driver veteran Victor Lee found himself in Victory lane. The local Top Gun Sprint Car series also presented the first of what will be three straight nights of winged 305 action and Danny Martin Jr. would bring home the win in that event.
Thursday would find everything around East Bay looking much better as things had dried up, the track would be totally different for the drivers and the temperatures had also ridden somewhat. There were still some wet roads near the back of the property and late arrivals plus the Sprint Cars had to hunt for a dry spot to pit with most ending up on a little knoll near the back of the parking lot they fought with the roaming cranes for a pitting position. If you've never been to East Bay, the property is a roaming sort of flexible parking lot, based on the weather and creative action is sometimes needed to find a dry spot after rains amidst the debris and junked out vehicles and double wide gutted trailers that litter the property. This track is not visited as a scenic adventure, it's the racing that dominates here.
Three new Modifieds including one from Canada helped raise the Modified field to sixty two while twenty six Top Gun Sprints were also in the pits. The Modified format would be the same as the previous night while the Sprints would be one of the very rare breed of Sprint series that do not qualify, as they use passing points to set their feature lineups, a refreshing change during a series when too many laps are made by cars in qualifying mode for my tastes anyway.
Twenty four more hours of drying weather created a race track that was much different than the one seem on Wednesday plus the wide tires of the Sprints, which ran before the Modified feature, all helped to develop a track that was about one hundred and eighty degrees different than that seen the previous night. Track crews were also busy with some other projects as the sound system and dead speakers had been fixed and a whole bunch of light bulbs were replaced in the scoreboard so that the numbers for time trials were legible after a previous night of trying to decipher what seemed to be some kind of ancient hieroglyphics on cave walls.
There are things you notice down here that you would never see at any other time during the year. Using the sometimes bizarre format of UMP, in the heat races, if a driver spins on the first lap by himself, he goes to the back. However, if it turns out to be a multi car pileup, everyone gets their spot back. So it seems to be that often the strategy is to run like a bat out of hell on the opening lap, and if you spin try to get someone else to hit you and stop so you get your spot back! Of course this gets tricky as you don't want to get so hard that you are wrecked and can't continue but a little fender bender with all hitting the brakes and stopping is most welcome. Then it's time to try it again.
Also, we saw a B Feature tonight where the green flag had been dropped and the yellow waved twice before a lap could be completed. Suddenly, another car pulled on to the track and joined the field, something that would not be allowed anywhere else. However, this driver raced and actually come up just one spot short of making the main which would have been a true travesty and something that you would only see in Florida.
Drake Troutman would be quickest qualifier on Thursday and surprisingly, his best lap was two tenth of a second quicker than on Wednesday night when the track was "hammer down" but still slimy when qualifying took place. Sadly, for those of us yearning for heat race passes, he pulled the one pill for straight up starts and all six heat races were won right off the front row. However, the twenty four car feature field would compete in a much wilder, crazy and unpredictable main event that would have folks talking and perhaps, shaking their heads just a bit too at what they had seen.
Steve Stevenson, an addition to the field on Thursday driving a former Jeff Mathews car, would get the jump on fellow Florida driver Travis Varnadore and lead the opening lap as the locals were making much noise early as they went after their second straight win.
. Stevenson led the first five laps as Lucas Lee and Tyler Nicely moved into challenging positions when the first caution waved for a multi car wreck in turn one with Allen Weisser one of the participants. This would be looked back on later.
Unfortunately, the restart went sideways with Lucas Lee climbing on the back of Stevenson's car as the race was a "no go" with the jammed up start that was ugly from the beginning.
It had been announced at the driver's meeting that if the leader didn't fire in the "fire zone" which was clearly marked, it would be the leader's fault. Being very much that the case here, Stevenson was sent to the tail and Lucas Lee inherited the lead. However, he was being challenged heavily by Nicely with Victor Lee, after starting fourth, gradually easing his way into third.
NIcely continued to pressure Lucas Lee heavily until back to back yellows on laps eighteen and nineteen slowed the field, the second when Tyler Clem, having a good run, was dumped on the front chute.
Things bunched up on the restart with L. Lee, Nicely and V. Lee battling hard for the top spot. The squeeze came off turn two and Nicely got forced low on the track and clipped the inside jersey barricade, damaging his car while he spun. He then went to the tail and would later spin again and pull off, marking the second straight night he has been a DNF.
This left it to the Lee's, Lucas and Victor, to settle the race and while they battled, behind them a war raged with drivers exchanging spots on nearly every lap as the changing conditions on this unpredictable racing surface saw drivers make one good lap followed by a miserable one as the shuffling took place.
Lucas Lee was having a terrible time turning his car in the corners and finally, with just three laps to go, he slid high in turn four and Victor Lee, who had been very smooth all race, drove under him to take over the lead and he then pulled away for the win, satisfying one of his "bucket list " wants, a wild at East Bay.
A somewhat frustrated Lucas Lee would settle for second and lo and behold, Weisser, who went to the back following the lap five incident, would put on quite the drive and he passed cars and took advantage of the shuffle of positions to come home third. His car's number, taped on the plain white car, was flapping in the breeze but ugly or not, the car proved to be very fast. Weisser was not in the top five with ten laps to go and was really charging at the end. Seven of the twenty four would not finish and again for the second straight night, all were on the lead lap at the finish.
The Top Gun Sprints would start everyone running in the main with twenty five taking the green for their twenty five lapper. A.J. Maddox would the first lap before being passed by Garrett Green for the lead. However, Danny Martin Jr was moving up quickly and on lap eight he drove by Green to take over the lead. From that point, he would hold the top spot the rest of the way to take the win.
There were only two yellows for minor spins and the race itself was a smooth contest with Martin Jr, Maddox and Green running fairly close together at the front but there would be no challenges for the lead.
There was a dramatic difference in speed between the quickest cars and many of the others in the field, thus lapped traffic was worse than trying to navigate Interstate 4 at 5 pm. However, it appeared that the slower cars knew who they were and once the green was dropped, they all moved to the inside lane and the fast cars raced around them, almost like they were in the express lane on a freeway while the slower cars putted around the bottom. It made for a smooth race but a very odd looking affair also. There were only nine cars on the lead lap at the finish with twenty still running.
Despite the winner only taking home a grand for the victory, there were drivers on hand from five different states including northern drivers from New Jersey and Pennsylvania that helped beef up what would have been quite a small field otherwise. And with the Sprints running their main first, their wide tires really polished up the track for the Modified main and made for a very different racing surface for them.
However, some of the beauty of this event has been lost with the adding of a second division. Much like when the Lucas Oil Late Models race here in upcoming events, a one class program has much to offer with intense, non stop racing that was always done at an early time, something that many like including the race teams.
Now however, with the adding of a second class, the show seems to go much longer with the qualifying lasting well after the advertised starting time and the additional events of a two class program forcing the finish time to nearly 11:30 pm, far later than I had hoped to be at the track for these midweek shows. Less classes, not more is generally better.
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