POINTS RACE #3 AT OCEAN SPEEDWAY March 30, 2007 |
| This
was the first BAD race of the season at Ocean Speedway. The season
opener last year was rained out and there was no racing until early
May. The track was smooth and tacky; widened to 70 feet with high berms
replacing tractor tires on the infield margin. Twenty cars, four with rookie drivers, were signed in this night. Winners of three heats were, Ryan AMELN (HEAT 1) , Ryan DIATTE (HEAT 2) and Duane DANIEL (HEAT 3). In Heat 1, Martin Whittingham started on the pole and held the lead until late in the race. Ryan (Ameln) challenged hard in the turns but Martin powered ahead on the straights. Ryan finally made the pass at the end of lap 5 and went on for the win. In the turn 1 pass, there was contact and, when Martin went high, Dave Mosier was there to move up for a 2nd place finish. Martin finished 3rd. Gilbert Toste started inside row 3 and finished 4th in Dan Gregory's 32B. John Wear, first-race rookie, started last and finished 5th. In Heat 2, Ryan (Diatte) took the lead and set the pace in this quick 1:45:56 race; leading by about 8 car lengths by lap 3 and winning convincingly by about 10 car lengths. Chris Dorto started on the pole and finished 2nd, well ahead of Travis Sugden and Punky Pires in 3rd and 4th places. John Phillips finished 5th. In Heat 3, the lead five cars ran tight for the first few laps, with Duane Daniel taking the lead on lap 2 from a 4th place start, pulling ahead by a wide margin and finishing 1st. Tyler Schmidt started 2nd and finished 2nd. Steve Oliveira moved up from the rear to finish 3rd. Mark Tillinger was 4th and Danny Zuger was 5th. This was another quick, no-caution race - 1:46:44. TROPHY DASH: Start = Daniel, Schmidt, Mosier, Dorto, Diatte and Ameln; finish = MOSIER, Ameln, Daniel, Diatte, Schmidt and Dorto. Mosier led from lap 2 for the win. Ameln made an impressive charge from last to 2nd. Nineteen cars were lined up for the A MAIN, with Duane Daniel and Ryan Diatte on the front row. Chris Weaver had problems in his heat (lost oil plug), loaded early and missed the feature. Ryan (Diatte) took an early lead until overtaken on lap 7 by Ryan (Ameln) who led most of the remaining laps. By lap 10, the front running cars were starting to spread out; Ameln, Diatte, Mosier, Daniel, Whittingham, Toste... Toste got crossed up with Dorto on lap 16, stopped and re-started in the rear. On the re-start, Mosier passed Diatte and put heavy pressure on Ameln. At the checkered flag, Mosier was pulling up on Ameln who won by less than half a car length (0.064 sec) - a damned exciting finish. Diatte, Daniel and Schmidt finished 3rd, 4th and 5th. Completing the top 10 finishers were Tillinger, Dorto, Wear, Pipkin Jr and Guevara. CONGRATULATIONS TO RYAN AMELN, HEAT WINNERS, DASH WINNER (DAVE MOSIER) AND TOP FINISHERS. THANKS TO ALL DRIVERS WHO MADE THE SHOW. Note: ...This was the first time BAD cars were equipped with transponders at Ocean Speedway. Scoring was done both manually and automatically. Results can be found on www.mylaps.com. |