"I'm
noticing a turn of the tide on racing Web sites like Florida's
Karnac.com, the gathering place for the most dedicated race
fans in the state." -Orlando Sentinel
Larry Brazil Jr. inherited the lead on a lap 18 red flag and was never headed in the 30 TBARA Florida pavement sprint car series contest at Desoto Superspeedway on May 31. Brazil survived a late race charge by David Steele and was able to distance Steele by several car lengths at the checkers.
29 cars signed in to the pits to provide another full field of cars for the night’s event. At the green for the main event, young Dakotah Stephens took advantage of his outside front row starting position to jump out to an early lead in the 30 lap contest. 10 laps into the main Stephens yielded to pressure from Brian Gingras, putting Gingris solidly in the lead. Meanwhile, the trio of Brazil Jr., Steele and Troy Decaire were working their way forward from their mid grid starting positions. On lap 18 the race was red flagged when Jim Alvis took a very hard hit into the turn one wall. Fortunately Alvis escaped the incident unscathed. During the red Gingras’ car was found to have a leaking radiator, sending him to the pits to effect emergency repairs. This relegated Gingras to the rear of the field and gave Brazil Jr. the lead for the restart. Inside of 10 laps to the finish Steele put on a two lap hard press for the lead but Brazil Jr. never yielded and drove home to victory. Following Brazil Jr. to the finish was Steele, Decaire, Dude Teate and DJ Hoelzle.
In heat race action, Brazil Jr. grabbed race number 1, which combined with his main event win, earned him the Steele Performance of the Night sweep award. Heat race 2 went to Mickey Kempgins with heat race 3 going to young Dakotah Stephens in his first heat race win.
