Jefferson takes Gulf Coast Modifieds, Chelsea LaJoie First New Magic 4 Winner
By Rick Anges
Bradenton, Fl. Rain all around the state stayed away from the racing at “the High-Banks” of DeSoto Super Speedway Saturday night.
The very popular Gulf Coast Modified series rolled into DeSoto for race number 5 of the season. Lee Collins, former track champion at DeSoto had racked up three wins out of the four events run so far with Perry Brown the only the other winner thus far.
Bobby Baldwin who was last years track champion showed he knew his way around the speedway as he edged out the rest of the field to take fast time.
Baldwin drew the number 6 pill to invert the field. It was Mike Hinegardner who lead the early laps but it wasn’t long before “the Rocketman” Wayne Jefferson made the move and took over the top spot.
Positions were swapped through out the field but Jefferson went unchallenged to become the third winner in the series. Second across the stripe was Hinegardner, third went to a strong running Sean McLaughlin, fourth went to Robbie Cooper and fifth was points leader Lee Collins.
Magic 4’s Shane “the Iceman” Yoder has dominated every race in the Magic 4 class. The class is made up of 12-17 year olds in stock 4cylinder cars.
Tonight though would be different as young Chelsea LaJoie would jump out to the lead on the drop of the green. LaJoie wheeled her number 3 machine out to a good lead as Yoder was battling traffic back in the pack. Yoder finally made his way into the second spot but with only two laps to go was unable to track down LaJoie who became the first new winner in the class, Yoder settled for second, Clay Joseph Jr. was third, fourth went to Bill Leake and fifth was Christina Crawford.
Pyramid Employers Pure Stocks Darrin “Icewater” Ellis made is back to back wins in the Pure Stock feature tightening up the points race finishing ahead points leader Jimmie Best who finished second, third went to ’04 track champion Duane Best, fourth across was Tyler Lau and fifth was Duane Campbell.
On a sad note long time racer Richie Thorbin driver of the number 30 car who had finished sixth in the race was rushed to the hospital with chest pains and passed away. Thorbin was a veteran racer who ran Figure 8s through out the country for many years. He will missed by all of his competitors, fans, family and staff at the speedway.
Outlaw Modifeds Once again the wild 4 banger modifeds put on a wild show and when the smoke cleared it was Cliff Steinmann taking the win, running second was Doug Hopper, third went to Raymond “SuperFrog” Jones, fourth was Phil Brigham and fifth William Campbell.
Trailer Super Center Mini-Stocks 1 DEAN BUTRUM 2 JON BAILEY 3 MIKE KERRIVAN 4 ROBERT CARTER 5 TIMOTHY HERRINGTON
DeSoto Pro Trucks 1 JEFF FIRESTINE 2 CLINT SNYDER 3 JASON DEATON 4 TYLER LAU 5 GARY DEEMER
Cowboy Caddys 1 JOE GAGEN 2 DUANE CAMPBELL 3 LARRY BALLARD 4 CHRIS BETZ
