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BERNAL DEFENDS HOME TURF WITH OCEAN USAC WIN
WATSONVILLE, CALIFORNIA (April 21,
2013) - For the second consecutive season, Hollister's Ryan Bernal
stormed to victory in the first USAC Western Classic Sprint Car
appearance at Ocean Speedway Watsonville. The two-time Ocean Wingless
champion drove Keith and Josh Ford's #73 to victory for his third
career USAC Western Classic win.
The win came after
Bernal completed a big slidejob on Kingsburg's Tanner Swanson and then
pulled away from Brentwood's Colton Slack, a six-time Ocean Watsonville
winner in 2012, to take the checkers.
"Yeah it feels good
to come back to my home track and winning in front of crowd. Honestly I
had a little bit of doubt in the beginning of the night in how the
track would play out but John Prentice gave us a great track," Bernal
said.
Slack led the 14 car
starting field to green but it was Swanson taking the lead from the
outside pole for the first three laps. Slack was shuffled back to
fourth in the early going.
Bernal started sixth
and stormed to the second position by lap three. On lap four, Bernal
charged past Swanson to take the lead with a big slidejob. Fourth
starting Matt Streeter of Galt followed Bernal to take over second.
Streeter tried to
chase down Bernal as the leaders hit lapped traffic, and on lap nine
Streeter spun while trying to put a lap on Carmichael's Tom Baker.
Over the next ten
laps, Bernal stretched out his lead before getting gathered up in lapped
traffic himself. Swanson pulled within two car lengths with Slack in
tow, before the caution came out for a multi-car pileup in turn
three. The melee involved Baker, 2012 USAC Western Classic champion
Tony Hunt, and Roseville's Scott Hall, with Fair Oaks' Shauna Hogg
making contact with Baker moments later.
The red flag came
out on lap 24 when Winton's Gordon Rodgers got upside down, nearly
collecting Bernal in the process. The restart on lap 24 set up a
shootout between Bernal, Swanson, and Slack for the win.
Slack used the
restart to make his move on Swanson, sticking a crowd-pleasing slidejob
to take the position. Bernal cruised to a 3.4 second victory ahead of
Slack, Swanson, Streeter, and DJ Johnson making his USAC debut with a
410 under the hood.
"It was a lot of fun
running the top, waiting for Tanner to make a mistake but he didn't
make very many mistakes," Slack said. "It was like a month ago since I
raced, coming out with these guys who are way more experienced than I
am is a blast!"
Swanson was
satisfied with a third place performance in only his second Wingless
Sprint Car start and first career start at Ocean.
"The guys gave me a
good car and if I had a little bit more confidence I might have had
something," Swanson said. "Third's not too bad; we'll take it and I
learned a lot. For a second there it looked like Ryan was having a
hard time with one of the lapped cars."
"I didn't even know where the race track was! It's cool to come out here and see all the fans and race on a Friday night."
Heat race wins went
to Swanson and Hogg, while the fast-time was set by 15 year-old Nathan
Washam of Pleasanton with a 14.814 second lap in Jamie Hood's #33
entry.
The USAC Sprint Cars
return to Ocean Speedway Watsonville on June 21 and August 10 with the
USAC/CRA and on July 12 during the "Howard Kaeding Classic" with the
USAC Western Classic Sprints.
The Ocean Sprints presented by Taco Bravo return to action on Friday May 3rd.
For more information on the Ocean Sprints log onto http://www.oceansprints.com and for more on the Ocean Speedway visit http://www.oceanspeedway.com
Ocean Speedway would
like to thank Taco Bravo, Digital Delivery Networks, Nobel
Construction, Get Som Sports, Ray Scheidt's Electric, Hoosier Tires
West, and Kaeding Performance for their support.
April 19, 2013 Ocean Sprints presented by Taco Bravo - Watsonville, California
QUALIFYING: 33 Nathan Washam 14.814
HEAT 1: 69 Tanner Swanson
HEAT 2: 5 Shauna Hogg
30 LAP FEATURE: 1) 73 Ryan Bernal, 2) 17 Colton
Slack, 3) 69 Tanner Swanson, 4) 14jr Matt Streeter, 5) 33x DJ Johnson,
6) 56 Tony Hunt, 7) 33 Nathan Washam, 8) 8 Jim Richardson, 9) 84 Klint
Simpson, 10) 56v Scott Hall, 11) 94 Gordon Rodgers, 12) 5 Shauna Hogg,
13) 3T Tom Baker, 14) 12k AJ Kirkpatrick NT
LAP LEADERS: 69 Tanner Swanson 1-3, 73 Ryan Bernal 4-30
www.stevenblakesley.com
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