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

Only 12 cars signed in tonight, Notable absences - #35jr, Ricky Wright, Jr (at Chowchilla I am sure), #19 Art McCarthy, #6c Jeff Parady, #27, Brett Rollag, #3, Adrian Betournay

Track was greasy, greasy for qualifying with all cars well above 13 seconds.

Top qualifier was the #10x of Roberto Kirby at 13.628

Heat 1 - 6 cars, 8 laps - Finish, Car #, name, (started)

1. #5v, Bradley Terrel (2) 2. #84, Klint SImpson (1) 3, #32, Norm Johns (3) 4. #10x, Kirby (4) 5. #51, John Kirby, Jr. (5) 6. #9n, Nick Ringo, Jr. (6)

Heat 2 -6 cars, 8 laps - Finsih, Car#, name (started)

1. #51x, Gary Paulson (2) 2. #56, Shawn Arriaga (3) 3. #7h, Jake Haulot (1) 4. #3x, Geving (5) 5. #10, Michael Forsland (4) 6. #63, Ivan Worden (6)

A-Main - 25 laps, Finish, Car#, name, (started)

1. #51x, Paulson (1) - this was Paulson's 1st 360 winged sprint car main event win 2. #32, Johns (4) 3. #3x, Geviing (8) 4. #56, Arriaga (5) 5. #10x, Kirby (6) 6. #84, Simpson (7) 7. #51, Kirby, Jr. (10) 8. #5v, Terrel (2) 9. #9n, Ringo, Jr. (12) 10. #10, Forsland (11) 11. #7h, Haulot (3) 12. #63, Worden (9-DNF)

Geving 8th to 3rd

June 6th - wingless spec sprints (no 360 winged cars)

June 13th - 360 winged sprints and wingless spec sprints

June 20th - USAC-CRA

On the 26th anniversary weekend of The Great GP's horrific crash, Gary Paulson wins his first ever main event in a sprint car.

I had a great conversation with Joy Paulson, Gary Paulson's grandmother, in the stands last night after delivering a couple minutes on the history of GP. Joy stopped me on the way back to the booth and thanked me for remembering...

The Paulson family goes back as far as any family with GP, with Hans spinning the wrenches on GP's cars, and Peter instrumental in the Tognotti chassis during it's inception. GP won many many races in chassis built and motors maintained by the Paulsons. Heck if this win by Gary Paulson didn't just fit perfectly into this weekend.

The circle is very round.

Maybe you could share on the Internet too. There is a GP website that I know you must be aware of and of course here would be a great place to share. GP was my favorite.

"Ralphie, Senor, muchas gracias por una mas cerveza"  -
Scott Daloisio @ the PAS

Trip,

I'm the king of hitting send too early and going back and editing.

When I relay stories during breaks in the program, I'm going off the top of my head, so they may sound a little broken up as facts pop into my head, but I think it's better that way. I'd rather have a conversation with the fans than read something off of a piece of paper. It makes the relationship more personal with the fans. I truly enjoy every time someone introduces themselves to me because you never know who you are talking to, but the stories just flow from them and I hope to retain the information for use at a later date.

I'm still not quite sure about the Paulson family and the relationships to each other, but this is something that needs to be expanded on for history's sake. The Paulson family has a long long history of sprint car racing and is an overlooked cornerstone of speed in the Northern California Sprint Car world. Peter was the original inventor/partner in the Tognotti chassis. Also, Hans would be Joy's son, who is Gary's father. There was also an uncle in there somewhere. I may be wrong on all of this, but it was in the 40s at Petaluma last night, and I had shorts on and no jacket, so I may have been hypothermic. I have seen pictures of Hans working on GP's cars, and Joy attested to the fact that Hans went way back with GP, so unless there are two Hans's, which there may very well be, the connection between the Paulson family and GP is closer than most.

There are great stories on the www.garypattersonracing.com website, but the one I relayed to the fans last night was the trash can story...

GP was asked in Australia (track not important) what he thought of the track, and GP answered typically for GP "If you put two handles on either end of this track, you'd have the world's biggest garbage can." He then expanded the handles to either side of Australia, and said the same thing. 3,000 fans, 3,000 beer bottles were thrown at him. Nearly started a riot, and he had to be taken out in an armored car. This is the same country that paid tribute to GP when he was taken from us with articles in their newpapers. The Australian newspaper clip can be found on www.garypattersonracing.com in the photos section.