Race Report from Irwindale Speedway, July 1st Weekend
4 July 2000
IRWINDALE SPEEDWAY RACE REPORT - SATURDAY JULY 1, 2000 A turn-away crowd of almost 7,000 excited fans saw three NASCAR weekly series drivers all add to their list of race wins at Irwindale Speedway on Saturday night, July 1. Capped of by an early 4th of July fireworks sky spectacular, James Weston, Rip Michels, and T.K. Karvasek , three of Irwindale's winningest drivers in the 2000 season, all won their respective mains but none of them (…Except maybe Rip) had anything that you could even call close to a runaway race. In the Legends Cars feature event, Tom Landreth from Alta Loma was the first of the 24 finishers, and, in the night's last race, the pride of San Pedro, the (semi)-legendary "Barefoot" Billy Zieman hustled his Caddy to a crowd-pleasing win in the always-outrageous Figure 8 event. A special high-speed precision driving demonstration by five fast California Highway Patrol officers in their cruisers got the program started and an Air Force color guard from the 163th Air Refueling Wing at March Field added an appropriate patriotic tone to the sold-out event. It was an early Ultra Wheels 4th of July celebration and everyone on site seemed ready to party. James Weston (aka: "Bam-Bam" according to his driving suit, though no one has ever heard him called that to his face) of Goleta is, as they say, on a roll. Winning the last six NASCAR Late Model goarounds at Irwindale and putting his seventh in the bank on Saturday night, he followed eventual second place finisher Guy Goldstein for 36 laps of the scheduled 50 before putting an inside move on the driver from Cathedral City that put Weston in the number one slot to the end of the show. Jeff Saelid from nearby Covina also made some smooth moves late in the race that netted him his first podium finish of the year. Coming home fourth was Richard Hooper from Palmdale, with Canyon Country's David Hessing filling out the top five. Top Rookie of the Year contenders Deryk "The X-Man" Ward (Palm Desert) and Tony Green (Oak Hills) finished sixth and eight respectively. Two words: Super Stock, two names: Karvasek and Green. End of race report. No, not really, but it truly is hard to take your eyes off of T.K. Karvasek and Jeff "Wild Thing" Green when they are locked in battle in a NASCAR Super Stock event at Irwindale. These two dominate the division, consistently putting on the cleanest, most exciting, two-car battles of the night, keeping the fans on the edge of their seats for every lap. This night T.K. (from North Hills) got to do his patented victory dance in front of the screaming crowd, but Jeff (Long Beach) picked up 48 point (to T.K.'s 50 for the win) keeping his lead in the season points battle. Burbank's Yagel Berkovitz came in third, with last year's champ Mike Price (San Pedro) hanging in there in fourth and Tom Siebuhr from Newhall taking the fifth place laurels. It almost goes without saying that Rip Michels is the dominate force in Irwindale's NASCAR Grand American Modified Division this season. The Mission Hills man's record of winning 5 of 6 races is the best "batting average" of any driver this year. Only Dean Kuhn from Oceanside and Covina's Jimmy White seems to have anything for the red-hot Ripper. Michels and Kuhn put on a super driving exhibition with Rip pulling away near the end of the 30-lap feature. White lead the opening lap and challenged both Kuhn and Michels eventually ending up with a respectable (and points-paying) third. Mike Bush from North Hills was fourth, and Dave Andrews was fifth in a ferocious race that saw Robert Rice (Hawthorne) and Tom Topping (Eagle Rock) collide explosively as they shot out of turn four with one car literally flying over the hood of the other! Both drivers were fine, but both cars suffered substantial damage while protecting their operators. A few minutes after the on-track festivities concluded, fans took a couple of deep breaths, the track lights were turned down, and the huge crowd was treated to a spectacular July 4th fireworks show courtesy of event sponsor Ultra Wheels. When the last mind-blowing display faded from the sky all were invited to join the drivers and crews for an impromptu autograph party in the pits. -DS SPECIAL NOTE: Saturday race was the first of five race nights in July which have been designated "Spark of Love / Christmas in July" nights at Irwindale Speedway. LA County Firefighters were at the facility to collect new, unwrapped toys for Christmas distribution to less fortunate children in a four-county area. As it was a completely new program Speedway management had hoped to collect at least a few toys the first time out … When the evening was over they were completely blown away by the response! It took one of the track's F-150 pickups one and a half trips to the storage area to put away all the toys! Best of all, many of them were race car related (although it's not required at all) as track announcer Bruce Flanders had suggested a week earlier. Four more weeks remain for fans to bring a new, unwrapped toy or sporting goods item to the Speedway before each race. Everyone doing so will receive a $5.00 gift certificate and a copy that night's program (a $4.00 value) from the track as a small "thank you" for thinking about some nice kids who have very little.