Forum: Northern California Sprint Car (go)
Moderators: StuDeedooo

26 cars - highest wingless car count of the year

Top 5 Qualifiers - 1. #41 David Press, 14.95 2. #3x, R.C. Smith, 14.95 3. #26, Billy Aton, 14.96 4. #36, Bob Newberry, 15.07 5. #20, Keith Shipherd, 15.14

Heat 1 - finish, car#, Name, (started) - 8 laps - Top 5 transfer

1. #4, Cody Smith (4) 2. #41, Press (6) 3. #0x, Dave Ellis (1) 4. #36, Newberry (5) 5. #12, Lucas Nerlove (3) 6. #3xx, Dupont (8) 7. #0, no name 8. #33E, Busenback? (2) - #33 Macintosh did not make the call, but would start in the B-Main

Heat 2 - finish, car #, name (started) - 8 laps -

1. #3g, David Goodwill (2) 2. #14, Jeff Kindt (4) 3. #3, Smith (6) 4. #20, Shipherd (5) 5. #41s, Jack Clark (1) 6. #22, Roy Fisher (5) 7. #3, Eddy Gardner (3) 8. #48, Mike Vaughn (9) 9. #77, Bert Silverling (8)

Heat 3 - finsih, car#, name, (started) - 8 laps

1. #21x, Marcus Hardina (7) 2, #2x, Geoff Ensign (4) 3. #57, Troy Carraway (3) 4. #99, Dan Gonderman (5) 5. #76, Ed Amador (1) 6. #8c, Ford Cook (8) 7. #32p, Dan Payne (9) 8. #26, Billy Aton (6)

B- Main - 12 laps - 9 cars - straight up by time

1. #26, Aton (1) 2. #33, Macintosh (2) 3. #3x, Dupont (6) 4. #3, Gardner (4) 5. #0, no name (3) 6. #8c, Cook (5) 7. #77, Silverling (7) 8. #33e, Busenback (9) 9. #32p, Payne (8) - #48 Vaughn l

A-Main - 25 laps (cut to 18 laps) 22 cars started - 0 inversion

1. #26, Aton (3) 2. #3x, Smith (2-DQ for not stopping on track after checkered flag to be escorted to scales) 3. #2x, Ensign (9) 4. #36, Newberry (4) 5. #41, Press (1) 6. #33, Macintosh (13) 7. #14, Kindt (8) 8. #57, Carraway (12) 9. #99, Gonderman (6) 10. #4, Smith (7) 11. #3g, Goodwill (14) 12. #22, Fisher 13. #41s, Clark (15) 14. #8c, Cook (22) 15. #77, Silverling (19) 16. #0, no name (20) (10) 17. #21x, Hardina (12) 18. #0x, Ellis (16) 19. #20, Shipherd (5) 20. #12, Nerlove (10) 21. #3xx, Dupont (21) 22. #76, Amador (18)

feature cut short to 18 laps due several red flags and yellows during event causing the race to run up against curfew and still having another class to run its feature. It sucked that Smith was DQ'd for not going to scales in what I think was his 1st visit to Petaluma. He was fast.. Some great racing by the wingless guys with battles all over the track. You could watch the leaders Aton and Smith fight for the lead, or guys moving up from mid pack to action in the back. If not for the curfew the last 7 laps could have been memorable. . Macintosh moved up 7 spots to finish 6th and Ensign was awarded 2nd from 9th starting coming on strong at the end in only his 3rd or 4th wingless race to be the hard chargers. My apologies if I botched some names. Please correct if you find any errors. It was tough to keep track of the final rundown with cars going into the pits and coming back out on later yellows. Plus a green and white checkered was to end the race (after a red for the #4 of Cody Smith) but a double spin in turn 2 on the green flag restart ended the race.

I agree great racing with heats 1& 2 going flag to flag & lots of fast cars. The group of regulars running at Petaluma are a great bunch and so good to see car counts going up!

Great job on reporting, the last few laps of the main were hard to record.

Car #0 was Rick Sharp, # 33B was Bill Boosembark

photos will be up in a day or so on specsprint.com

For the record, the 3x was not disqualified.

Good to hear the #3x was not DQ'd. He drove a heckuva race. What changed? The pits had him DQ'd on the board. Thanks

It's a "spirit of the rule" thing. Yes, he went to the pits. No, nothing was done to the car, and according to the head official that made the decision not to DQ, it's not like he had reverse in the car and could back out quickly . He was told to weigh, and immediately went to the scales.

On a side note, the 26 car had a broken jacob's ladder for the last handful of laps after getting together with a lapper. Great job of driving by a youngster with an ill handling car, especially the re-pass for the lead coming to the checkered in turn 4. Youthful exuberance overcomes cautious experience this time.

PETALUMA, CA WINGLESS SPEC SPRINT CARS
Petaluma Speedway - Petaluma, CA
August 2, 2008

26 CARS

TIME TRIALS:
1. David Press, 41- 14.951; 2. RC Smith, 3X- 14.954; 3. Billy Aton, 26- 14.958; 4. Bob Newberry, 36- 15.073; 5. Keith Shipherd, 20- 15.147; 6. Dan Gonderman, 99- 15.169; 7. Kody Smith, 4- 15.201; 8. Jeff Kindt, 14- 15.201; 9. Geoff Ensign, 2X- 15.238; 10. Lucas Nerlove, 12- 15.259; 11. Roy Fisher, 22- 15.268; 12. Troy Caraway, 57- 15.278; 13. Jason McIntosh, 33- 15.322; 14. David Goodwill, 3G- 15.366; 15. Marcus Hardina, 21X- 15.398; 16. Dave Ellis, 0X- 15.489; 17. Jack Clark, 41S- 15.693; 18. Ed Amador, 76- 15.755; 19. Rick Sharp, 0- 15.763; 20. Eddie Gardner, 3- 15.773; 21. Ford Cook, 8C- 15.991; 22. Scott DuPont, 3XX- 16.409; 23. Burt Silverling, 77- 16.441; 24. Dan Payne, 32P- 16.699; 25. Bill Boosembark, 33B- 16.712; 26. Michael Vaughn, 48- 17.046.

HEAT RACE 1: (8 laps)
1. Kody Smith, 2. David Press, 3. David Ellis, 4. Bob Newberry, 5. Lucas Nerlove, 6. Scott DuPont, 7. Rick Sharp, 8. Bill Boosembark.

HEAT RACE 2: (8 laps)
1. David Goodwill, 2. Jeff Kindt, 3. RC Smith, 4. Keith Shipherd, 5. Jack Clark, 6. Roy Fisher, 7. Eddie Gardner, 8. Michael Vaughn, 9. Burt Silverling.

HEAT RACE 3: (8 laps)
1. Marcus Hardina, 2. Geoff Ensign, 3. Troy Caraway, 4. Dan Gonderman, 5. Ed Amador, 6. Ford Cook, 7. Dan Payne, 8 Billy Aton.

SEMI-MAIN: (12 laps)
1. Billy Aton, 2. Jason McIntosh, 3. Scott DuPont, 4. Eddie Gardner, 5. Rick Sharp, 6. Ford Cook, 7. Burt Silverling, 8. Bill Boosembark, 9. Dan Payne.

FEATURE: (Shortened Due To Time)
1. Billy Aton, 2. RC Smith, 3. Geoff Ensign, 4. Bob Newberry, 5. David Press, 6. Jason McIntosh, 7. Jack Clark, 8. Jeff Kindt, 9. Troy Caraway, 10. Dan Gonderman, 11. Kody Smith, 12. David Goodwill, 13. Roy Fisher, 14. Ford Cook, 15. David Ellis, 16. Burt Silverling, 17. Rick Sharp, 18. Marcus Hardina, 19. Scott DuPont, 20. Keith Shipherd, 21. Lucas Nerlove, 22. Ed Amador, 23. Eddie Gardner.
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Question for Petaluma Pits:

What was factored into the decision to allow Aton as an 8th place finisher in heat 3 to get his qualifying time back for the feature lineup? Not meant in any way disrectful, just curious because it was my understanding that times would be given to the top 5 from each heat, and have never seen someone running a B main get their time back? THX!

You're an observant one !

Petaluma Speedway uses the same format that the Civil War Series/John Padjen tracks/Golden State Series do. This way, things can be uniform from Petaluma to other tracks and the drivers know what the heck is going on with the lineups. Petaluma uses this format for every division that qualifies on any particular night, not just sprint cars.

The 26 (Aton) qualified 3rd, but you already knew that. In his heat race, he DID NOT make the top 5 because of the front end damage. The B Main is made up of all of the cars that did not qualify through their heat races. The catch is that the top 4 of the B Main get their qualifying times back BEHIND THE INVERSION DRAW. In this case, a ZERO was drawn, enabling the 26 to start 3rd, where he qualified. The reason you have not seen this before at Petaluma is because a zero has never been drawn on the same night a top qualifier hasn't made the main event through their heat race.

If a 6 would have been drawn for example, the 26 would have started 7th, an 8 drawn he would have started 9th and so on. The rest of the B Main top 4 pretty much were slower qualifiers and got their times back, although not to the advantage that the 26 did. If the 26 was the FASTEST qualifier on Saturday and qualified through the B Main, the farthest forward he could start would be 3rd since that's the rule for a B Main qualifier.

Make sense?

Yes, thank you for clarifying that! Spec Sprint drivers for the most part aren't aware of the intricate details such as these that factor into a lineup when qualifying, so hopefully this cleared it up for some that questioned the lineup.

I also noticed that in heat 2 the 6th place car made the A main and assume it was because that heat had 9 cars entered and the others started w/ 8?

Appreciate your explanations, and always enjoy racing at Petaluma!

P.S. photos are now up and story will be posted later this evening on specsprint.com

You know you're right? I had to look up scoring for that one.

How can I say I screwed the pooch and not look like an idiot? I had him marked as a transfer from the heat race and obviously can't count to 5 accurately. I can get the lineup procedure down perfectly, but can't count to 5. I'm blaming El Molino High School.

The lineup was straight up, so he started as far forward as he was going to should he have come through either the heat race or the B, so I guess no harm no foul on this one.

Eesh.