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Two Young Guns Bring Home Wins at Desoto Super Speedway
By Phil Schryver
Bradenton, FL - Saturday May 3rd, 2008. This weekend was a night of stock cars and guitars at ASA sanctioned DeSoto Super Speedway. We had an exciting night of racing action, plus a live Country Western concert with National Recording Artist – Eric Church. The feature events included a 50 lap DeSoto Trucks race, Pure Stocks, Magic 4’s, and the Cars of Yesterday.
The magic 4’s were up first and had a great surprise when they learned they would get to run on the full track, rather than on the smaller track in the middle. The magic 4’s are the kid’s class, ranging from ages 12 – 17.
The driver to beat that night was 16 year old Jessica Ostrovskis, who has won the last 3 races in a row, and is currently the point’s leader. It was also announced that when the magic 4’s get more then 1 win in a row, they start adding 25 lbs of weight to the car for each consecutive win after that to give the other kids a fighting chance to beat them.
Jessica would start the race with an extra 50lbs of weight. First season driver, #21 Mark Bartimac started on the pole, with the #81 of Brittany Barr on his outside. When the green flag dropped, Mark took off like a rocket.
Brittany held on to second, fighting off the #13 of Alex Patten, and the #91 of Jessica. The battle continued throughout the entire 15 laps of this race between the top 4 cars. Brittany did a great job staying in the outside lane and kept swapping positions with Jessica. Towards the end, Alex Patten was able to get out ahead of everyone and win the race. Jessica finished second, while Mark finished 3rd.
This was a special win for Alex, as he is getting ready to celebrate his 14th birthday this week.
When the race was over, we had all of the magic 4 drivers pull onto the front stretch, and gave them all a chance to thank their sponsors and the fans.
In the 50 lap Desoto Trucks race, another young gun – Steven Nasse, was able to hold off some veteran drivers to bring home the win. Steven is even younger than most of our Magic 4 drivers. Steven is 12 years old, and has been racing since he was 5. He started out in Go-Karts on dirt, and has now been racing in the truck series for 2 years.
Steven started on the pole after a 4 Truck inversion. The #12 of Charlie Montgomery was the fast time qualifier and started 4th.
On the drop of the green flag, Nasse jumped out ahead and never looked back. By lap 18 of the race, Nasse was a good 10 car lengths ahead of the field, but there was a big battle for 2nd between the #12 of Montgomery, the #50 of Danny Anderson, and the #41 of Steven Darvalics.
Lap 24 brought out the 1st caution of the night when the #50 of Anderson, and the #41 of Darvalics connected between turns 3 & 4, spinning the #50 of Anderson out. Both drivers were given their spots back.
After only 1 more caution, the #69 of Nasse would bring home the win for the night. Sten is also celebrating his 13th Birthday this week.
Saturday May 10th, will be another exciting night with the TBARA Winged Sprints returning to Desoto Super Speedway. There will also be a 100 lap Open Wheel Modified Race, a 50 lap Bomber Shootout, Pure Stocks, and Street Stocks.
