Friday, January 29, 2021

Scott and Richards Top Rare East Bay Doubleheader

 Thursday night, January 28th, Johnny Scott topped the regularly scheduled forty lap Lucas Oil Series Late Model feature race at East Bay Raceway Park. Josh Richards also won a forty lapper too as he was victorious in the make up feature that was left over from Wednesday night's rain shortened program. This was the first doubleheader event carried out at the track since the 2016 Winter Nationals and then, as in this night's event, the reason was weather related. 

It is quickly apparent why such doing such a doubleheader event is frowned upon and attempted to be avoided at all costs and likely the reason we sat waiting so long on Wednesday before the call was made to postpone the rest of the show until the following night. Running two feature races on the same night is tough on everyone from the track workers to the drivers and race crews, the series officials and certainly not the least to be mentioned, the track itself. 

Here when a show gets rained out or partly completed before it gets rained upon, the following night the track just seems to respond in a negative way and must also make it difficult for the track prep crew to get it correctly set up. Because on Thursday night, from the first set of hot laps it appeared that the track was crumbly, rough and way too dry to take all the laps that it would soon see. And while the track seemed to smooth out as the night progressed, it quickly became a one groove, hug the bottom kind of surface that frustrates drivers, leads to wrecks and makes for poor racing that is disappointed to all on both sides of the track. And unfortunately, that was what everyone had to deal with on Thursday night. And in their efforts to try and advance themselves in the running order over the course of the evening, drivers were spun by others, bold and reckless moves were made and a whole series of multi car wrecks tore up a considerable amount of equipment and made for one of the most expensive nights of racing for the crews here in several years. Some teams even lost the services of both their primary and back up cars before the night was done. 

A visit to the pits before the racing began found everyone pretty mellow as the early rainout of the night before left many teams with not too much work to be done. By the end of the night, however, those easy moments would be just a memory. One of the few teams still thrashing was that of Freddie Carpenter, but as he promised, he did get his car fixed and would be ready to race on Thursday, having lost only one night to his big wreck earlier this week. 

New cars still arrive even now that we are past midweek. Michael Page, Tim Dohm and Ross Bailes made their first appearance of the week on Thursday. Mark Whitener, with his Moseby Motorsports #385 scheduled to start on the pole for the make up feature race, then opted to roll out his own #5 car to run the show on Friday. That seems like a bold gamble since the other car had just been quick qualifier the night before but Mark would have made it work except for one problem, he failed to make weight. He had a good heat race and would have been solidly in the show except that he came up light at the scales, had to go to the back of a B Feature and then just opted out for the rest of the night. 

His other ride, the #385 almost got him a top five finish until he rolled to a halt with just five laps left with a flat tire, ending a good run with that car and culminating a frustrating night.

Ray Cook also made his first attempt of the week when he drove the Joe Denby second car but failed to make it to the main event. Ricky Thornton Jr rolled out a back up car for tonight after struggling so far this week as did Tim McCreadie but he did so because of a wreck  that damaged his primary car. 

Six heat races and three B Features set the stage for the main event. Quickly working his way forward after starting ninth using both passes and advancing some positions when others had problems, Stormy Scott moved into second and with a bold move on a restart, drove to the second lane to take over the race lead and once in front, he led for the rest of the race. 

The track quickly became a one groove affair with everyone hugging the extreme inside and waiting for a mistake to happen to advance. Scott built up a considerable lead following a couple of multi car crashes that really took a toll as a third of the starting field failed to finish.

Stormy's only problem was when he caught the back of the pack who were lined up single file and hugging that same inside line that the leaders were using. With no second groove available to drive around the slower cars, Scott had to just wait patiently for an opening which was tough as this allowed Kyle Bronson and McCreadie to catch up but luckily for Scott, Bronson had to worry more about keeping McCreadie behind him rather than focusing on a way to pass the leader. 

Scott was finally able to slip under the slower cars and his way to victory was then clear and he drove home for his first Lucas series victory, a win that was widely celebrated by his competing drivers and certainly by all his Modified friends where he still maintains a strong presence. Bronson would finish second and McCreadie third. Illinois drivers Frankie Heckenast and Brian Shirley would complete the top five in this follow the leader race. 

After this feature, the track crew would spend about a half hour blading off the top surface of the track and removing the rubber. In the meantime, it was a mad scramble in the pits as teams raced to repair cars and roll out back ups for the two left over B Features from Thursday along with another forty lap main. 

Brandon Sheppard and Josh Richards would both roll out back up cars while Kyle Strickler, already out of cars with both not race ready in quick fashion, borrowed a car from Rob Anderzack(another #8 by the way) to start the main. 

Twenty eight cars would start the second feature race which would be perhaps even more challenging to watch than the first. Whitener would lead early but the yellow was a frequent visitor waving five times in the first eight laps for series of spins and wrecks. Bobby Pierce, who qualified well, would have an especially tough time of it, spinning twice in the first six laps and eventually calling it a night as he tried to make the outside work. 

The track quickly got one grooved again with Richards making the winning pass early as he got around Whitener for the lead and then built up quite a distance over the field. The frequent spins and yellows(nine in all) allowed some to work their way up through the field while not truly passing anyone in the normal manner as again, over a third of the field would be off the track before the checkered. 

Brandon Overton attempted to stay with Richards but Josh was fast in the rubber and made no mistakes and there was no lapped traffic to contend with as the yellows came frequent, including the last that set up a one lap dash to the finish. Richards got the win with a car fresh off the loft after his primary car got all torn up in the first feature with Overton finishing second ahead of Hudson O'Neal, Shirley and Devin Moran. The only changes at the end were when top five runners Whitener, McCreadie and Dennis Erb all had tire issues. The first two got flats and Erb had one go bad in the last two laps and he dropped all the way from third to twelfth. 

The evening turned out to be one that would leave most everyone except the winners with a bad taste in their mouths. The drivers were frustrated with all that went on, the crews were disgusted with all the torn up equipment that had to be fixed, the track officials were not happy with the less than spectacular show presented and the track prep team had to be annoyed that all their efforts didn't turn out to be successful. Hopefully the one night hiccup will just be a speed bump in the road and racing will return to normal come Friday when the ante goes up, both in race laps and cash on the line. The crowd, by the way, was huge for a Thursday night show. 



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