After a one day break precipitated by a steady, all day soaker on Tuesday, the Lucas Oil Late Model Series was back in action on Wednesday night, February 9th at the East Bay Raceway Park near Gibsonton. With only one night of racing so far in the East Bay series, most everyone stuck it out in the pits with only three cars not racing on Wednesday while they were replaced by three others making their first East Bay Starts.
Added to the grid on Wednesday were Frank Heckenast Jr, who actually was here on Monday but opted not to race, Pierce McCarter who practiced on Sunday but also opted out on Monday and Michigan driver Chris Nash. Taking the night off but still on the grounds were Kerry King, Jimmy Owens and Jason Miles. The car for Jeff Mathews was unloaded and looked ready to race but Mathews did not appear on the track for the second straight night.
Come to think of it, if anyone would have wanted to leave, they probably couldn't have done so as the mud was considerable all over the grounds at East Bay. In fact, some of the Late Models in the far corners of the pits didn't get liberated until quite close to race time. This has marked the second time during Speed Weeks, the first during the Modified week, that Al Varnadore and his staff with their heavy equipment have had to spend many hours scraping and shoving mud around so that the roads into the pits and spectator parking lots for that matter, as well as the track itself, were passable. They will be more than ready for this week to end so that they can get some rest as the employees here are probably the only ones working harder than the race crews themselves.
So it would be another night where no one would know just exactly what the race track would be like until cars actually hit the racing surface and for the second time this week, I must give the track prep crew a "pass" as we were lucky to even see racing, no matter how the surface did work out as other tracks in this area weren't even able to race on this night, it was that wet.
As it turned out, it would again be a primarily low side racing surface with a few drivers venturing out to the top side but most either settling for the bottom line or afraid to venture up the track. Winner Brandon Sheppard found his best success hugging the infield tires in turns one and two and letting the car drift up the track in turn four to keep his momentum up.
While walking through the pits, I spotted former Gopher 50 promoter Jerry Ingvalson, from Blooming Prairie Minnesota, visiting with many of the drivers. Many folks will also remember "Mr. Excitement", Terry Casey from New London Wisconsin and his exploits here at East Bay which are part of this track's legacy. Casey was spotted turning wrenches on the car of Missouri's Brennon Willard on Wednesday.
After Monday night's ridiculously large B Feature, Lucas Oil officials made a nice adjustment to the racing schedule for this night and I believe, for the rest of the week as they added one more B Featrue to the program, thus giving the drivers some last chance races that were not as overly large in number. There were still seventeen or eighteen cars in each B, but they were a little more manageable than the gigantic ones presented on Monday night.
As always, qualifying is a huge part of the program here as in order to have a reasonable chance of success during the night, one must start toward the very front of a heat race and in order to do that, a quick qualifying lap is necessary. Shcaeppard and Devin Moran would be the quickest of the two groups, with the track slowing about three tenths of a second for the second group. The track must either be pounded down hard from all the racing on it so far this year or they are simply running out of racing material on the surface as it was showing "black" in the corners before the hot laps were done and would prove to be slippery and somewhat "dirty" all night. The days of hammer down racing here appear to be a thing of the past.
Six heats and three B Features plus series point provisional starters would set the field for the forty lap main event on Wednesday, with ten laps added to the main plus a couple thousand extra dollars to the winner. One of the surprises of the heats was Ashton Winger getting the jump on "Turbo" Erb and winning a heat while Tim McCreadie became the first driver not starting in the front row to win a heat.
Sheppard would get the jump off the pole to lead early but the leaders soon caught the back of the field as the twenty six cars got strung out. The top side was very dirty but Sheppard had no other choice than to go there as everyone was hugging the hub but it bit him quickly. He got stuck on the top side where he could find no traction and Brandon Overton, who started third, drove under him for the lead which was quickly followed by a yellow.
Overton would continue to lead with Sheppard and Tyler Erb close behind. However, just as he had trouble in All-Tech under a longer green flag run, Overton would again have trouble keeping the nose of his car from pushing up the track and it did so again here tonight and on lap thirteen, Sheppard would drive under Overton in the tricky turn one and regain the lead.
Once in front, Sheppard would pull away from the pack and not really be under the gun again during the race. Overton would lose second to Erb who would try and pressure Sheppard on restarts but Sheppard always seemed to have the ability to pull away.
Overton and Ricky Thornton Jr would fight hard for third and they would get together in the troublesome first turn with Overton spinning but he caught a huge break when the yellow was instead called for debris seconds before they got together. Overton would get his spot back but his car was damaged and he would drop back, eventually triggering the last yellow when he slowed with only four laps left in the race.
Sheppard would pull away on the four lap sprint to the finish and win easily. The best battle was for second where Ashton Winger has been looking strong and giving the G.R. Smith ride a good show. He would fight his way past Erb right at the end and take second from "Turbo." The other noteworthy run was turned in by Kyle Bronson. He pulled into the "hot pit" early in the feature under yellow, and returned to the back of the pack. Being a wall rider, he threw caution to the wind and tried the high side of the track and eventually it worked for him as he was able to drive back to fourth. So perhaps there is hope that the top side will come in if enough drivers will run out there and clean off that lane of the track which has remained quite "dirty" so far.
Under improving but still cool conditions, a huge Wednesday night crowd was on hand and with good weather in the forecast for the coming days, it looks like East Bay might be setting some attendance records this week as folks make the "Clay By The Bay" a destination race before the track closes forever.
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