Evergreen Speedway was once again cold enough Saturday night that I could see my breath. When, oh when, will spring arrive?
The super stock division main was delayed when a misting rain started to fall, but the min-stocks ran and dried out the track.
Later on in the evening the rain returned during the bomber division main, prompting track announcer Terry Buell to joke to the crowd that “snow is once again falling as it has been a cold and chilly October in Washington.”
Actually, I should say the rain returned during the third segment of the bomber main, but you can read more about that below.
You can find my Evergreen Speedway notes here: (CLICK HERE).
Also, Skagit Speedway results can be found here: (CLICK HERE) Thanks again to Kaleb Hart for giving me such great material to work from.
As a side note, Tayler Malsam of Sammamish finished a career-best third at the ARCA Re/MAX Pocono 200 in Long Pond, Pa., on Saturday.
In addition to driving in the ARCA series, Malsam races sprint cars at Skagit Speedway and with the American Sprint Car Series-Northwest.
For more information on the Pocono 200, including a quote by Malsam, (CLICK HERE).
Super stocks
Naima Lang had to work hard for his fifth super stock feature victory of the season.
Lang passed John Berrow for the lead on a restart, then held off John Zaretzke during three attempts at finishing the super stock feature main on Saturday, June 7 at Evergreen Speedway.
Polestitter Berrow led more than half of the scheduled 40-lap race, but Lang was able to get around him on the outside after a restart on lap 27.
Lang then had to survive four restarts, including two green-white-checkered finish attempts and a final one-lap shootout where the green and white flags were shown together.
Berrow spun out between turns 3 and 4 on lap 38, setting up the first attempt at finishing the race with a two-lap dash.
Defending champion John Zaretzke was on the outside of the front row for the restart, but Michael Prudnick spun the No. 26 car coming around turn 4 and the field was reset for another try.
On the second green-white-checkered attempt, Lang spun his tires and Zaretzke, who had a solid restart, jumped into the lead heading into turn 1.
But that restart was also negated when Mike Holden and Fred Hall got together in turn 2, sending Hall into the deep mud off the three-eighths mile oval and Holden into the pits with nose damage.
Due to time constraints track officials waved the green and white flags together for the final attempt, and Lang’s restart was much better.
“I wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice,” Lang said from victory stage.
Zaretzke finished second, James Mugge was third, Jeff Knight came in fourth and Steve Ptacek rounded out the top five.
Bombers
Fans watching the bomber main actually got to see three mains in one.
That’s because the red flag waved three times, twice when cars left the racing surface and got mired in the mud.
Instead of waiting for the emergency crews to get the cars out, track officials ran the super figure eight and crash cars mains in the middle while the bombers were parked along the three-eighths mile oval.
Former champion Travis Blackwood ended up with his second bomber main win of the season on Saturday, although he took time out from his victory speech to apologize to Scott Mann.
The second red flag came about after Blackwood’s car brushed Mann’s during a pass in turn 3, cutting Mann’s tire and sending his car into oncoming traffic.
The contact was universally viewed as unintentional — a racing deal — and was typical of the banging going on in the second-tier division on Saturday night.
Because of time constraints, the restart from that red flag was another one-lap shootout, with the green and white flags waved together.
Blackwood passed Casey Branch for the lead on the restart and took the checkered flag. Branch was second, Frank Cowgill was third and Jim Foti finished fourth.
Mini-stocks
Former champion Mark Weedin recorded his third feature win of the season Saturday in the mini-stock main.
Weedin passed Jon Roberts for the lead on lap 4, then held off defending champion Chuck Richards, who couldn’t quite muster the power for a pass.
Richards finished second, Brent Rohrer was third and Dale Creager took fourth.
Richards’ car took a tremendous lick in one of the heat races, bouncing sideways off another car and into the frontstretch wall. Richards finished that race with white smoking pouring out of the left rear of his car, and made rapid repairs before the main.
From victory stage, Weedin saluted Richards as the “best driver in the division,” for being able to finish second in a damaged racecar.
Super figure eight
Defending champion John Carlson took the lead on lap 10 and then held off Ricky Deitz the rest of the way for his third points victory of the season.
Carlson also won the 60 Minutes of FEAR on May 17.
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