Ray Bragg takes TBARA Sprints at Desoto, Robby McAuliffe wins first feature in OWM
By Rick Anges
Bradenton, Fl. The rains came early but the fans waited out the thunder and racing resumed with some great action. The crowd was entertained with awesome racing from the 8 features on the card.
The High Horsepower TBARA Winged Sprints returned to DeSoto with a vengeance. Twenty cars took the green flag and Ray Bragg who sat on the out side of the front row jumped out to the lead. Bragg was able to pull away from the rest of the screaming pack early. There was a lot of racing action all through the field and late in the race Dude Teate was able pull right up on the tail of Bragg.
As the laps wound down Teate was using the whole racetrack trying to pass the leader. Bragg's machine began smoking towards the end but was able to hold on to take the win. The whole side of the Braggs car was covered in oil in the winners circle and probably wouldn't have been able to make it another lap.
Teate rolled across the stripe for second who started eighth, Doug Hevron took third, fourth was Keith Butler and fifth went to Shane Butler.
The Winged Sprints return to the "South's Fastest Short Track" November 1st.
Classic Cars
On the white flag lap of the feature, the leader Ben Booth's car stumbled off the low side allowing Gary Kelley to get enough momentum to power by in turn one and take the lead and race to an apparent win. Spencer was running fifth but spun in turn four on the white flag lap.
The finish was Kelley, Booth, Ball, Joey Strehle, and Daryl Grief. Kelley's victory celebration was short-lived however as eighth place finisher Patrick Sanders presented $1800 to CARS officials, the amount needed to claim Kelley's winning engine.
Kelley, who indicated this was the only engine he had to finish the season with, opted not to sell and per CARS rules was disqualified, earning no money and points for the night.
Kelley said he and his crew were down here to have a good time and he might have considered pulling the engine out and selling it to Sanders had it not already become Sunday morning with a long ride back to Tennessee ahead of him.
So, with Kelley's DQ, the veteran Ben Booth finally picked up his first win in the Classic Auto Racing Series while adding to his overall series point lead as well as picking up the Door Operating Systems Rookie of the Race Award for both nights.
The adjusted order of finish showed Booth the winner with Brian Ball second and Joey Strehle third. Daryl Grief and Bill Posey finished up a strong weekend with a fourth and fifth place.
Open Wheel Modifieds
Robby McAulffe has been battling his race car all year and finally found the right combination Saturday night holding off a hard charging Timmy Moore, who finished second, to make his first showing Pat Nanney finished third, fourth went to Mark Chapman and rounding out the top five was Andy Dyndal.
DeSoto Truck Series
"Grampa" Paul Grynewicz took the feature for the second week in a row in the Truck series over 21 of fast pick trucks. Current points leader Shane Russ finished in the second spot, third went to the younger Paul E. Grynewicz, fourth was B.J.Gill fifth went to Danny Glover Jr..
Sportsman
Joe Shaver returned to the winners circle making a late race pass to take the trophy in the sportsman feature over Bubba Thompson, Wallace "Body Damage" Ramsey took the third spot, fourth went to Buddy Brown and fifth was Mark Peterson.
Mini-Stocks
Ed Jasper has been close several times including a second place the week before but tonite was his night. Jasper jumped out to the lead and never looked back taking his first ever feature event win in the mini-stock class, Todd Freed Jr. was second, third was Mike Gayle, Joe Gagen took the fourth spot and fifth went to Jon Bailey.
Pure Stock
Jimmie Best padded his point's lead winning the pure stock event over Rob Taylor, Ed Stinson, Jody Collins and Dennis Hess.
Street Stock
A DQ in tech gave the Street Stock win to Jamie Cassidy, second was Greg Krom, third went to Jimmie Best, fourth place Robert Haygood and fifth was points leader Tommy Huffstutler.
