Sport Allen Winner in Race 2 for 360 Sprints at East Bay
by Jean Lynch
TAMPA, Fla - 1/30/03 - With sweat dripping form his brow, local hot shoe, Sport Allen climbed out of his car elected at having won his first-ever race in East Bay Raceway Park's 27 year history of Winternational events. The $1,500 win came on night two of the 5th Annual King of the 360's racing series over some of the best chauffeurs in the Sprint car world, fast Freddie Rahmer, Lance Dewease, Joey Seldana and Terry McCarl.
"I wanted to beat these guys so bad, especially Jason Sides," Allen said as he grinned from ear to ear. He continued again, using a word common with drivers this week, "the track was awesome. This thing (track surface) is so fast, it's hard to pass. I thought someone was on my bumper, so I was running as hard as I could." To the contrary, the longer he ran after taking the lead from Rahmer on lap 15, the faster he got and the bigger his lead. His margin of victory was nearly a straight-away.
In victory circle, Allen expressed his thanks to his car owner for the last two years, Taylor Andrews, for giving him such great equipment, stating, "This is the best ride in Florida!" His year old Schnee chassis was powered by a new Ziegler engine built down the road in Sarasota especially for this King of the 360 event. He also gave credit for the success of his career to Mom Jean and his hard working crew which included Stacey, Ernie, Richard and Jonea.
Sides had set fast time for the 43 cars on hard for the second consecutive night and pulled the feature inversion pill of ten, just like he did the previous night. This put Shane Stewart and Freddie Rahmer on the front row of the 25 lap A-Main. Erin Crocker and Lance Dewease were in row two followed by Darren Eash and Gary Wright. Deeper in the field, starting in the fourth row were Allen and Saldana, then the final inverted row of McCarl and Sides.
Stewart led lap one running the inside then Rahmer blew by in turn two to lead the second round. After com- pleting six laps Rahmer had caught the back of the field and had lapped Mike Lutz. He was about to lap his second car, Greg Leonard in turn two, when Leonard got sideways and even though Rahmer missed him, Lutz was collected and got upside down with second running Stewart also caught up in the mix.
When racing resumed after the red flag, the only other pause in action came on lap eight for Dusty Ballenger who got backwards on the infield of the backstretch. By this time Allen was up to third and then captured second spot one lap later. Rahmer and Allem came up on the back of the field bylap 14 and Allen used an inside move in turn two to take the lead on lap 15.
With the laps ticking away Allen's car hooked up to the new clay and there was no doubt his lap times were getting faster. Rahmer had nothing that could spoil this first Winternationals victory for Allen. Dewease rode a consistant third with Seldana and McCarl making it into the top five. Eash, Greg Wilson, Sides, Stewart and Danny Martin rounded out the top ten.
Heats went to Ballenger, McCarl, Stewart, Jeff VanDusen and Daryl Smith. Eash, Crocker, Rahmer, Martin, Mike Woodring and Paul McMahan advanced from the 15 lap B- Main during which, Crocker, looked close to picking up her first checkered at East Bay after leading the first 11 laps. She hesitated coming up on a lapped car and that was all Eash needed to take that opportunity away from her.
The Goodson Farms Strawberry Dash was won by Daron Clayton followed by Chuck Swenson, Corey Herring, Brian Thomas, Dan Bennett, Jake Peters, Terry Pletch, Larry LaPoint, Red Stauffer and Tom Winegardner.
The Limited Late Model A-Main went to Roger Crouse with James Burrows runner-up. Finishing third was Tommy Evonosky, followed by David Boerner and Bill Howard in the top five.
