Hudson O'Neal kicked off the annual General Tire Winter Nationals at East Bay Raceway Park on Monday night, January 25th with a victory in the thirty lap Lucas Oil Late Model Series inaugural for the six night series here at the "clay by the bay" at East Bay is referred to.
After spending nearly two weeks enjoying the opening races of the 2021 racing season in the desert, it was quite a reversal to head down to Florida for more top notch Late Model, early season racing. While the temperatures were much the same during the day, the amount of humidity in the air made the two venues very dissimilar. I was really not supposed to be down here in Florida quite this soon, but circumstances worked out such that an earlier than planned trip developed so just over seventy two hours from when I had made the road trip from Wisconsin to Arizona and back, I was on the road once again, this time to the east side of Florida for a week plus more of racing.
Both trips, to this point at least, were seamless but I can say with certainty that the only drivers worse than those in Arizona are those in Florida and anyone that has driven the highways of either state I believe would agree with that statement! While it was bad for me to be making the back to back drives, imagine those eight Late Model teams on hand that were also in Arizona and had to leave almost immediately for Florida from the Wild West Shootout finale to prepare cars and get to Florida for practice. Hopefully the early season schedule will be refined just a bit next year to make this unnecessary. And the East Bay Winter Nationals is starting earlier than usual too, with racing in January not normally the case here. However, with the Super Bowl being played in Tampa, that threw racing schedules for a loop in this state for 2021, a change that will hopefully be adjusted in 2022.
Just like in Arizona, the field of cars and numbers of spectators in the grandstands watching have been huge. A gigantic field of seventy six Late Models signed in on Monday for the opening round of racing, the highest total here for almost a decade and if at least four more drivers show up before the week is over, which does seem likely, the record will have been shattered to way back in 2008.
I think there are probably a few reasons why the car counts and spectator turn outs have been so high. A big one is that many fans have been "locked down" for almost a year with many from the East Coast reporting that tracks they attended didn't allow spectators at all in 2020 and several also didn't open. Now, with things seemingly opening up to a point, they have much ground and time to make up. And while masks are required for entry to restaurants and hotels, the masks being worn at the track are very scarce in nature compared to Arizona.
Lots of race teams didn't run as much as last year so they perhaps have a bit more in the budget to start their seasons earlier than normal. And also, East Bay Raceway Park is scheduled to close after the 2024 racing season, having been sold to the mining company next door and I'm sure for some crews and fans that their goal is to get to East Bay at least once before the track is shut down for good. By the way, the mining company seems to be thriving as the gigantic piles of dirt seem to be getting larger and larger by the day and now almost surround the racing facility.
For Late Model fans, East Bay and the Lucas Series is great place to be. Only one class of cars is in competition and both Lucas and East Bay are well known for running off a speedy program, much appreciated by fans who have other things to do while on vacation rather than sitting at the race track all night. Actually, this year's addition got off to a longer than normal night, mostly due to a feature race that dragged on for over an hour because of a rare night with way too many yellows.
However, they do specialize in getting started on time and that was not altered, even with the large field of cars. They hot lapped all cars and did qualifying and still started right at the appointed time of 7 pm. So yes, time trials can be run and races started at the scheduled time if proper planning is done, something that doesn't happen too often but the fact that live tv is involved here probably is the tipping point for that to happen.
Six heat races, using straight up starts from qualifying and two B Features would set the field for the main event. Controversy started early when Tony Jackson Jr and Tyler Bruening got together in a hear race with Jackson sending Bruening spinning. These two may be seeing each other a lot over the course of the Summer and this was not a good way for them to begin the season. Devin Dixon made a scintillating last lap pass to get into the feature but was docked four spots for jumping the restart so there was plenty of things going on early.
A highlight of the heats was South Dakota driver Blair Nothdurft holding off defending Lucas champion Jimmy Owens to make the feature race. Tyler Erb was the only heat race winner to not start on the front row of his heat as time trials are always very important, especially with a huge field of cars and the starting system that Lucas uses.
The two B Features were Jeff Broeg approved size, with twenty nine cars scheduled to start each one with only twelve laps and only the top two making the feature! With that many cars not making the main, you can see why the field gradually shrinks as the week progresses. Lots of real good equipment sitting on the sidelines when the green flag for the feature race starts.
East Bay is always a very challenging track for the drivers with even the seasoned veterans struggling to read this surface, and Monday night would prove to be an especially challenging night. While track prep before the main just involved packing the cushion slightly and skimming off a little dirt right on the tires, the track seemed to change dramatically for the main and drivers were struggling mightily to figure it out.
It was tremendously slippery and almost gave the appearance of being a "wet slick" track but I don't think that was the case. Perhaps the humid night made things a bit trickier but even the best of drivers found it hard to make a good lap and then do it consistently. One good corner was followed by the next corner seeing the nose of the car sliding right up to the wall but that made for an interesting race.
Drivers like Bronson, Overton, Sheppard, O'Neal, Tyler Erb and others were dicing back and forth and the first ten laps or so were frantic with drivers changing positions and lines on the track on nearly every corner. Unfortunately, the only thing that kept it from being a classis is the way too frequent yellow flags which kept there from being any rhythm to the race. Eleven yellows flew in thirty laps so there was never more than a straight stretch of seven green flag laps and drivers that had problems early but stayed with it found themselves back up toward the front by the end of the race.
However, the driver that played it smart of O'Neal and while others tried to pound the cushion and get extra speed, he just hugged the inside line and made it work as while the rest were battling each other, he gradually just pulled away.
A late yellow set up a two lap dash to the finish but O'Neal continued to make the low side work as he pulled away from Sheppard and Overton to earn a big win for his new team. Moran would finish a strong fourth after leading some laps and looking like the class of the field for a period of time. EArly Pearson Jr started twenty third and made the top five and probably never passed a car during the whole race. He just kept going as car after car either dropped out or went to the back for various reasons. Jackson Jr and Tyler Erb both made the top ten after going to the back early also as there was much shuffling of positions, even though the passing was negligible.
Tuesday will be a busy day in the pits at East Bay. Many teams have much work to do and there will be some long conferences between drivers and crews over tires and strategy as after one night it can be safely said that the race track won the opening night of action and now it will be up to the drivers to figure out better this most challenging of surfaces.
No comments:
Post a Comment