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

9/25/2010 – Petaluma Speedway

At Petaluma Speedway’s year ending Hunt Magneto Shootout Wingless Sprint Car show, Geoff Ensign found himself smack dab in the middle of the action once again and at the end of it all, came away with a podium finish, albeit a frustrating one.

Qualifying went well for the 21 year old “Human Highlight Reel”, as out of the 37 cars in the pits, he timed in 4^th quick overall in the Johnson Machine #32.His qualifying spot put him outside of the third row in his heat race after the inversion and Ensign would have to make up some ground and finish 4^th or better in his heat race to make the A Main event.Ensign made it academic, finishing 3^rd after a high side, Grandma-keeps-the-good-liquor-up-here pass on the legendary Jimmy Sills and earning a spot in the A.After the inversion draw, Ensign found himself up towards the front of the field for the 30 lap main event starting outside of the second row.

The main event, paying $2000 to win, was the biggest payout for a Wingless Sprint Car winner at Petaluma during the 2010 season and 24 cars lined up to take their shot at it including Ensign, Silver Dollar Speedway Track Champion Terry Schank, Jr., Antioch Speedway Champion Tommy LaLiberte and newly crowned Petaluma Speedway Track Champion Sparky Howard.Add to it the second place finishers in points, Jimmy Pettit (Silver Dollar), Dave Press (Antioch) and Scotty DuPont (Petaluma) along with multiple time feature winners Ryan Bernal and Arvo Backholm, Zack Lynskey, that guy Sills and Jeremy Hawes (Marysville) and it was a who’s who of Wingless Sprint Car drivers in Northern California set to light the night up.

At the green flag, Ensign jumped to the outside and quickly went from 4^th to second, settling in behind Tommy LaLiberte, who had dived underneath Ensign at the start and took over the top spot when Ensign had to check up behind a slower car who had started in front of him.Ensign then hounded LaLiberte for the remainder of the stop-go-stop-go race, marred by yellows and red flags.The race wore on, and LaLiberte kept Ensign at bay until LaLiberte made contact with a lapper.The contact sent the lapper into the infield, LaLiberte bouncing into turn one, and Ensign to the lead with a huge advantage coming out of turn two.However, down the backstretch, Ensign saw the yellow lights flashing. The flagman had thrown the yellow “too quickly” in the flagman’s own words since the car which spun into the infield was well off of the racing surface.At this point, Ensign had the lead, the longtime leader was headed to the back for causing the yellow and Ensign had a chance to catch his breath for the remaining 3 laps of the race.However, fate would play a stacked deck of cards against Ensign since even though LaLiberte, in all possible scenarios, caused the yellow to happen, the race reverted to the previously scored lap.LaLiberte, by virtue of keeping his engine running, was given back the point and went on to secure the win.Ensign would have to be content with 2^nd place money having the victory taken from his hands by an inadvertent yellow flag.

Fate was not kind to Ensign this night, but he had other things to look forward to, most notably the Fall Nationals 360 race at Chico’s Silver Dollar Speedway the next week and continued pursuit of a ride at the Oval Nationals at Perris Speedway in November.

Ron Lingron - Heavy Metal Racing

To contact Geoff Ensign, contact him on his Facebook page (search Geoff Ensign) or at [email protected].

i hate "inadvertent" yellows and "spilt" yellows. someone always gets screwed. still in most sprint car racing if you don't stop, you get your spot back. so i can't say i see a problem with that. hard to blame jeff for seeing it different though! lol.

to indy and beyond!!

'Human Highlight Reel', thats debateable. LaLiberte's car didn't run through the infield, didn't stop so why shouldn't he get that spot back. I've seen many times 2 cars come together but only 1 of them stops, the other car will keep going. Did both cause the accident yes, but if 1 keeps his car going he gets his spot back according to the last completed lap, thats called racing.