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| ONLINE RACING: CHAMBLEE AND SUBER SCORE OPENING NIGHT WINS: | by Jimmy McKinley
March 4, 2001 - A strong field of cars pulled into the infield at Bristol Motor Speedway Sunday night, for the USA Series' opening round of the 2001 season. Chuck Chamblee of Arab, AL, a former Huntsville Speedway Late Model track champion, towed into Bristol Motor Speedway as one of the new season's favorites, after turning some impressive lap times in practice. Sure enough, Chamblee powered his Chamblee Racing Chevrolet to fast time with a 15.152-second lap. Only a half a second separated the field of sixteen cars, with the exception of Steve Isley, who crashed his car in practice, and made a slow lap to qualify. Canada's Emery Dryden scored the outside front row starting spot, which would prove to be advantageous to the two starters. Isleywould be the first car out, after only one lap.
The first caution flew quickly as a couple of cars got together in the back of the field. Chamblee had opened a good lead, but the yellow allowed the field to bunch up. The next casualty of the night was Kyle Finney, making his debut in online competition. It was not a good first night for the #66F Chevrolet, as Finney had mechanical trouble and was done for the remainder of the event. The field went green for only a couple of laps before the next yellow came out when Chris Grubb and Jimmy McKinley got together in turn one racing for position. McKinley, the fourth-quickest qualifier, fell to the rear of the field after pitting with damage to his Paradise Ford/ProGressive Motorsports Taurus, then parked his machine after forty laps.
Chamblee again took off on the restart, leading Dryden and Harold Henneforth around the high banks. Traffic would be a bit of a factor as slower cars involved in earlier incidents slowed up the leaders enough to let the top five get bunched up. Several more yellows played into the hands of those not up front by allowing the field to get bunched up. But it was all the number two Chevrolet Monte Carlo as Chamblee led every lap to claim his first career USA Series win. Kevin Risen and the "Canadian Blast" Chris Rhynold rounded out the top five.
"First of all, I want to thank the USA Series for putting on a heck of a show Sunday night," Chamblee stated in Victory Lane. "Things got kind of crazy with the scoreboard, and it caused lots of confusion on the track but the race director got things straightened out. The key to winning at Bristol in a 50-lapper is starting up front. We didn't think the #2 Chamblee Racing Monte Carlo was going to be good enough to take the pole, but we got lucky and cut a good 2nd lap in qualifying. That turned out to be the key. All I did from that point on was just run a smooth line and stay out of trouble. The number 55 car gave me a good run on restarts, and almost got me on the final restart with 4 laps to go. He ran a good race and will probably win one before the season is over. I was really concerned that the 97 car was going to be coming on strong late in the race, but I think traffic was just too tight in front of him for him to get up front to challenge me. He and I ran bumper-to-bumper earlier in the week in practice.
"I could see there was a lot of banging around going on back in the field, I'm just glad I wasn't back there. Bristol is tough on race cars, and sometimes you have to be patient. But 50 laps doesn't give you much room for patience. We learned a lot at Bristol, and hopefully we can use that knowledge to stay out of trouble the rest of the season.
"Next week's race at Portland should be fun. We've practiced pretty well there, but it will be a big transition from the high banks of Bristol to Portland's tighter low banked turns." Brian Suber scored the win in the USA Series offline division, winning over Chris Rhynold, Scott Worden, Joe Hawley, and Paul Bayne. Worden powered the NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet #15 to the pole, while Bayne got the bonus for leading the most laps. This set up several tie positions in the points for the offline drivers.
The next event for the series will be in the Pacific Northwest, as the teams head to the flat half-mile Portland Speedway.
USA Series - Race #1 - RESULTS
SPRING SIZZLER
Bristol Motor Speedway
ONLINE QUALIFYING
Pos Car # Driver Time
1 2 Chuck Chamblee 15.132
2 55 Emery Dryden 15.193
3 31 Cliff Baucum 15.227
4 12 Jimmy McKinley 15.230
5 92 Harold Henneforth 15.253
6 52R Robby McAuliffe 15.258
7 24S Steve Rosner 15.258
8 66F Kyle Finney 15.290
9 65 Kevin Risen 15.301
10 F97 Kevin Neal 15.325
11 1 Chris Rhynold 15.403
12 72 Chris Grubb 15.420
13 20 Charles McQuaig 15.570
14 07 Joel Likness 15.581
15 103 Ed Eastley 15.653
16 67 Steve Isley 17.754
ONLINE RACE RESULTS
1 2 Chuck Chamblee 50 50 56
2 55 Emery Dryden 0 50 47
3 92 Harold Henneforth 0 50 44
4 65 Kevin Risen 0 50 41
5 1 Chris Rhynold 0 50 38
6 F97 Kevin Neal 0 50 36
7 103 Ed Eastley 0 50 34
8 72 Chris Grubb 0 50 32
9 24S Steve Rosner 0 49 30
10 07 Joel Likness 0 49 28
11 20 Charles McQuaig 0 48 26
12 52R Robby McAuliffe 0 48 25
13 31 Cliff Baucum 0 45 24
14 12 Jimmy McKinley 0 40 23
15 66F Kyle Finney 0 36 22
16 67 Steve Isley 0 0 21
1 85 Brian Suber 123.945 3 123.157 1 48 50 100% 50
2 1 Chris Rhynold 123.347 3 121.635 1 49 50 100% 47
3 15 Scott Worden 123.490 1 120.376 1 48 50 100% 47
4 96 Joe Hawley 120.831 3 120.338 1 23 50 98% 41
5 24 Paul Bayne 120.777 1 118.348 1 50 50 98% 41
6 94 Chris Landry 121.991 3 97.783 1 49 50 98% 36
7 20L Terry Legner 117.943 6 101.636 29 0 4 96% 34
8 67 Steve Isley 105.573 30 ---.--- 30 0 0 97% 32
Jimmy McKinley
USA Series Director
http://www.usaseries.net
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