Saturday night action at Citrus County Speedway featured a 50 Lap Sportsman, non points race, plus the Super Late Models, Mini Stocks, Street Stocks and 4 Cylinder Bombers in local point races. Added to the card were the FMARA T/Q Midgets. Cinco De Mio proved to be not so lucky for two drivers who took the checkered flag in feature races after tech found discrepancies.
Mike Veltman kicked off the night of action with a fast qualifying time of 14.591 seconds over the 24 car field and pulled the 8 pill for the starting inversion line up. When the green fell it only took one lap to bring out the first of ten caution flags for the night and unfortunately the attrition rate was extremely high leaving only ten cars to take the checkers. Ernie Reed came off the pole to take the early lead but that was short lived before 4th starter Richie Smith locked onto the lead and pulled 6th starter, Bobby Taylor, 7th starter Craig Cuzzone, and 5th starter Ronnie Heard along with him. On each restart the top four remained locked onto Smith pulling away from the rest of the field to set up a race for 5th with Ernie Reed leading that pack which is where most of the caution flag action took place. Smith looked like he was on his way to the win until he lost a motor that dropped fluid from turn 3 all the way around the track. Bobby Taylor inherited the lead and held off the pack that was chasing him for the final 10 laps for the win. John Grimm, Craig Cuzzone, Scott Hendrickson and Ernie Reed locked in the top five spots.
Super Late Models returned with a 16 car field that saw Mike Bresnahan waste no time working his way around Keith Zavrel and Daniel Webster to take the point in their 35 lap main event. Bresnahan caped off his heat win with his second win of the season in his new ride that seems to be dialed in, making it 2 wins out of three races. Daniel Webster survived a three car crash involving Herb Neumann and Gary Grubbs in the late laps to score a second place finish over Jim Smith, Danny Johnson and Perry Lovelady. Neumann came from the back of the pack to take a 7th place finish while Grubbs managed a 9th place finish. Mike Bell won the 1st heat and survived a spin into the turn 1-2 wall for a 6th place finish.
The Mini Stocks came out 16 cars strong in preparation for their 50 Lap special scheduled for May 19th after a light showing of only 12 cars last week. Mike Lawhorn held off the entire field from the get go until he lost power in the 18th lap of their 20 lap feature and wound up with a 9th place finish. Clint Foley managed to lead the most important lap after chasing Lawhorn for most of the race to take his 4th win of the season. Phillip Joyner rolled from 13th to finish 2nd in the over 14th starter Johnathon Camp. Point leader Steve Griffin ran his final race before orthopedic surgery this Wednesday for a 4th place finish over 4 time champion George Neumann. Griffin will probably miss the 50 lap special due to the surgery on his leg. Heat winners were Phillip Joyner and Mike Lawhorn.
Street Stocks saw 24 cars take the green flag that included Artie Hewitt who survived a vicious crash last week that took out part of the front straight wall and just about totaled his race car. He managed to put it back together and take the pole for the start of the feature but the car just wasn’t ready for racing this week. Sixth starter Mike Loudy made short work of the front five to take the point early in the race while 14th starter Tim Alexander drove through traffic to finish second behind Loudy. Their one, two finish was short lived as Loudy was D.Q.’d for an illegal rocker arm and Alexander picked up a D.Q. in tech for what was termed “Right Height” violation. Richie Smith moved from 19th to inherit his fifth win of the season after what appeared to be a third place finish. Todd Downs, Alvin Williamson, John Zuidema and Jim Hand moved up two spots from their finish to round out the top five. Heat winners were Ernie Reed, Tim Quick and Curtis Flanagan.
Eighteen 4 Cylinder Bombers made for a great show but again post race inspection changed the apparent outcome. Anthony LaPoint dominated in both his heat and feature race but when tech inspection got involved they found an illegal cam pulley which took him out of the winner’s circle. Jeff Eberly closed in on point leader Travis Hoefler taking with a heat win and his second feature win of the season. Chris Harvey outran Phil Edwards, Patric Conner and Candie Moniz in the run for second. Edwards took the win in the second heat.
FMARA TQ Midgets had 10 racers tow in from all over Florida to put on a 20 lap show that ended in a spectacular finish. Brandon Cagle was unbeatable in both the heat and 20 lap feature, blowing the rest of the field away. The race was for second between Jack Duffy, Joey McKinney and Ernie Teed Jr who were running in that order until the run for the checkers. Something apparently broke on Joey McKinney’s racer and he did a barrel roll down the front straight and stopping, right side up, just short of the finish line. Joey was slow getting out of the car but walked to the EMT truck, pretty well shaken up. Duffy held out for second followed by Ernie Teed Jr., pole sitter Eric Purcell and Michael Elder.
Mother’s Day weekend will see the Central Florida Sprints, Figure 8’s, Street Stocks, Pure Stocks, 4 Cylinder Bombers and V8 Thunder Stock Rookies back in action. Doug Rose and the Green Mamba Jet will come to Citrus County Speedway on Saturday, May 26th , for his unforgettable show, hitting the afterburner and blowing away a vehicle chained to the rear of his jet dragster in a shower of sparks and fire in his own unique special fireworks display.
