Submitted by Ken Keating
After the planned opening to the 2011 race season was rained out, on April 2nd, action did get underway at the Speedway this evening and it was eventful to say the least. The Demo Cars, Demo Trucks, Figure 8s, and the Bombers were the first Series to take to the track and the action started early. The Bombers lined up with four cars for four laps in the Trophy Dash and all four were involved in a minor collision on the first lap and had to start again. Last season's Champion, Brandon Steen, was the first driver to see Victory Square for 2011 winning this race by an inch over Aaron Cameron. Aasen Baker traded his Demo Truck for a Demo Car and won the Dash, Kevin Knight won the Demo Truck Dash, and Ashton Campbell won the Figure 8 Dash. After the Trophy Dashes were complete, most of last year's Champions and runner ups were presented with their rather large trophies.
The next event proved to be a bit more of a challenge as the backstretch lights did not work and wreaked havoc for the remainder of the night. As there was still a fair amount of relative daylight left, races were set and ready to go very quickly. The new rules for the Bombers state that the drivers are to run over a twenty second lap or face a disqualification. The B-Heat, won by Chris Stone, went off quite well with all drivers over the twenty second mark. The A-Heat might have proved costly to Brandon Carlson, Brandon Steen, and Jamie Morgan as they posted lap times of twenty seconds or faster and unofficially made a winner out of Aaron Cameron. The red flag came out during the Demo Car Heat race as Tyler Clough laid a big hit on Kirk Peacey that ended his night. He was ok after the hit but his car was done. Marc Parkinson was the winner of this race.
Cody Laughran and Daniel David led a field of fourteen cars for twenty laps of racing in the Bomber Feature event. Jarrod Sagmoen grabbed the lead on the first lap and led three before he was overtaken by Chris Stone. These two drivers traded the lead back and forth for several laps as they were trying hard to stay over the twenty second lap time.
Meanwhile behind them, Brandon Steen and Brandon Carlson moved up to make a four car pack running side by side trading the third and fourth spot back and forth. As this four car pack was coming out of turn four, and looking at the chequered flag, Sagmoen went a little sideways while everyone else was taking evasive action. Chris Stone won the battle for the win, Brandon Steen got by the other spinning cars for second and as other drivers were trying to avoid each other, Ron Benham got caught up and Heath Cooper, with nowhere to go, slammed into Benham's broadside under the chequered flag. Neither driver was injured but each car suffered a fair amount of damage.
Kevin Knight grabbed the lead on the second lap and walked away from the field and took the chequered flag in the Demo Truck Feature event. With this win Knight completed a clean sweep winning the Trophy Dash, the Heat race, and the Feature. Joe Liberatore took the lead on the first lap and led three more until he hit the blunt end of the turn four frontstretch wall. The red flag came out to make sure Joe was OK and it was determined with just four cars running and darkness now becoming a factor that the Feature event for the Demo Cars would come to an end making a winner out of Troy Tarbuck after five laps.
The Figure 8s would have no problem as all the lights on the fronstretch worked so they could run thirty laps for the Feature. Doug Richens grabbed the early lead followed by Ashton Campbell moving into second spot by lap four. On lap seven, Kail Beck took over the third spot and then moved to second on lap eleven. On lap thirteen, Beck took over the lead and stayed out of trouble for the remainder of the race and took the chequered flag for the win followed by Campbell. Until confirmed all finishes are unofficial at this point but one thing is clear, it was an eventful night with decent car counts to start
The next race at Western Speedway will be the opening night for the ever competitive Stock Cars, always exciting Dwarf Cars, and the I.M.S. 4 Mini Stock Series also very competitive.