Emmett's Veenstra wins Winged feature
Emmett's Veenstra wins Winged feature
By Jon Brown
MERIDIAN, Idaho -- Cody Veenstra found the power to win Saturday night at ASA-sanctioned Meridian Speedway.
The Emmett, Idaho, sprintcar driver roared out to a huge lead in the Winged Sprints main event and cruised to the checkered flag after 40 laps during the first night of the Pepsi and Tates Labor Day Races.
Veenstra led by as many as six seconds (or about half a lap) on the quarter-mile paved oval before Middleton, Idaho, teenager Sierra Jackson began to reel him in.
Jackson cut the deficit to about two seconds, but Veenstra keep enough throttle to make it to the end.
"I look at the scoreboard with each pass, and when I saw the 25 (Jackson) up there, I knew she was coming," Veenstra said. "I just tried to drive as defensively as I could.
"I don't really like winning from the front row, but we'll take it. We've had a pretty up and down year."
It looked like Saturday was going to be one of those "down" points in the season for Veenstra when his sprintcar lost power on the backstretch of the first lap of full-field heat race. He had to be pushed off the track.
But he found the winning formula by the time he returned to the track for the main event.
Other main event winners included Washington state Legends driver Ben Matheson taking home the checkered flag in the third annual Austin Christopherson Memorial Cup; Kuna, Idaho's Troy Evans in Super Stocks; Quentin Ward in the Mini Stocks; Steve Jones traveling from the Twin Falls area to win the first of two ASA Modifieds features; Jentry Pisca of Nampa checked out from the field and won the other ASA Modifieds main by nine seconds; and Andrew Clark of Meridian held off his sister, Aly, to win the Jr. Stingers track championship final.
The holiday weekend racing continues tonight with Late Model Lites, Non-Winged Sprints, Street Stocks, Thunder Dogs and a 100-lap main event for the Hornets.
Tickets are $10 for adults, $7.50 for military personnel with ID and senior citizens, $5 for children ages 7-11 and free for children 6 and younger.
The gates open at 4:30 p.m. with qualifying at 5 p.m. and racing at 6:30 p.m.
In the first ASA Modifieds main event, Steve Jones had to hold off Star, Idaho's Tony Ackerland for the final 13 laps of the 35-lap race. Ackerland seared his tires and tried every line possible to try to get around Jones, but could only drive his bumper against the rear of Jones' race car for most of the final 13 laps.
Jones took the lead on the race's first restart, driving past Keri Davey to get in front of the 20-car field. The first yellow was brought out when Al Colwell spun sideways in the middle of turns 3-4 and also collected points leader Tom Hill and Shelby Stroebel, who is second in the points.
It doesn't seem to matter who's driving the No. 20M ASA Modified these days, it finds its way to the winner's circle. Jentry Pisca, who owns the car, cruised to an easy victory in the 50-lap second main event.
The victory came a couple weeks after Meridian's Mike Murgoitio climbed into the same racer and won a feature. Pisca won by nine seconds, leading the field by about a half-lap by the end.
Afterwards, the Nampa driver said the way the car performed in the first main event during daylight hours Saturday helped set up the dominating victory later.
"We had a pretty tight car that first main session, so we took a little wedge out of it and it seemed to work," Pisca said. "We did all right."
What the understated Pisca didn't let on to was the fact that he was able to walk away from the field twice. He had built a seven-second lead by the 21st lap when Jeff Goade smacked the Turn 1 wall to bring out a red flag.
Second-place driver Al Colwell challenged on the side-by-side restart, but Pisca calmly distanced himself from the pack again, moving out to a three-second lead just seven laps into the green-flag run.
Eagle, Idaho's Tom Hill finished fifth in the second main event, ahead of all the drivers who are chasing him in one of the tightest points battles at Meridian Speedway this season.
Another points battle is over, with 12-year-old Andrew Clark taking home the first season championship trophy to be handed out this year at Meridian. Clark won every Jr. Stingers feature run at Meridian in 2009.
The Jr. Stingers main attracted a season-high field of nine cars for entry-level teenaged racers. By the fourth time around the quarter-mile in the 20-lap race, Clark, the series leader from Meridian, Idaho, had worked his way past early leader Matthew Berger and out to a comfortable lead.
By Lap 8, 14-year-old Aly Clark had caught her little brother, but she couldn't take the No. 3 car around the No. 5 and Andrew sewed up the season championship.
Ben Matheson traveled from Washington state to win his second consecutive feature race in Meridian's Legends class, but this was perhaps the biggest of them all.
The 40-lap race was run in memory of Austin Christopherson, a young Racing for Smiles of the Northwest participant who passed away three years ago. Half of $978 raised from a helmet-pass through the stands Saturday are to be donated to the Muscular Dystrophy Association by Racing for Smiles Northwest director Ron Hayes during the Monday noon hour on KIVI Channel 6. The donation will be made in Austin's memory.
Matheson roared from fifth place on Lap 11 to the lead on the Lap 21 restart after six cars were involved in a wreck in Turn 1. Four of the top five drivers were shuffled to the back of the field by the red flag accident.
Matheson passed Brandon Frasier of Nampa, Idaho, for the lead on the restart and then cruised to the victory.
Drivers from Washington have won the first three Christopherson Cups. Nick Johnson of Bonney Lake, Wash., won the first two memorial races.
In the Super Stocks, Troy Evans backed up his Fast Dash victory from earlier in the night with an easy victory in the 30-lap feature race. It was Evans' first main event victory of the year.
Quentin Ward got a little push from Nampa's Dell Scott moments after a side-by-side restart to work ahead of Jeff Hasson and to a victory in the Mini Stocks main event.
Ward emerged the leader after a big wreck early in the race. He had to build a cushion between he and Hasson over the final five laps of the race after Barry Taylor and Wade Hensley from the Twin Falls area collided and then barreled into the infield on the front stretch to bring out a yellow flag.
Hasson fell out of the top five as John Ellsworth pulled in as the runner-up, and Kirk Sanders finished third.
Visit Meridian Speedway online at www.meridianspeedway.com or call (208) 888-2813 for track information. To learn more about the American Speed Association, log on to www.ASA-Racing.com.
As an American Speed Association-sanctioned track, Meridian Speedway is part of the ASA Member Track National Championship for the Modified division.
The goal of the ASA Short Track National Championship is to activate a measuring system that takes into account many variables, such as field size, inversion, wins and number of races in a season, and create a level playing field to determine who is the ‘best-of-the-best’ of the ASA Member Track Champions Nationwide.
The ASA Joe Gibbs Driven National Member Track Champion Award was designed to give the National Champion exposure with one of the top teams in racing — Joe Gibbs Racing. Joe Gibbs Driven Oil, a division of Joe Gibbs Racing, sells the actual oil products developed and used by Joe Gibbs Racing to racers at all levels. More information can be found at www.joegibbsdriven.com.
The ASA Member Track program is comprised of a network of short tracks around the United States, as well as a variety of regional and national touring series. For news and information from all the racetracks and tours involved in the American Speed Association, visit www.ASA-Racing.com.
Meridian Speedway
Meridian, Idaho
Pepsi and Tates Labor Day Races
Day 1
Saturday's unofficial results
ASA Modifieds
Main event No. 1 (35 laps) --
1. Steve Jones; 2. Tony Ackerland, Star, Idaho; 3. Chris Fenton, Meridian, Idaho; 4. Jentry Pisca, Nampa, Idaho; 5. Charlie Ham Jr., Boise, Idaho
Main event No. 2 (50 laps) --
1. Pisca; 2. Al Colwell, Boise; 3. Kevin Zimmer, Horseshoe Bend, Idaho; 4. Dylan Caldwell, Nampa; 5. Tom Hill, Eagle, Idaho
Fast time, main event No. 1
-- Charlie Ham Jr., Boise, 14.590
Fast time, main event No. 2
-- Shelby Stroebel, Nampa, 14.559
Winged Sprints
Main (40 laps) --
1. Cody Veenstra, Emmett, Idaho; 2. Sierra Jackson, Middleton, Idaho; 3. Cory Lockwood, Nampa; 4. Chris Ratterree, Nampa; 5. Matt Elliott
Fast Dash (10 laps) --
1. Elliott; 2. Lockwood; 3. Ratterree; 4. Chris Adams, Nampa; 5. Don Kithcart, Eagle, Idaho
Fast time --
Chris Ratterree, Nampa, 12.216
Super Stocks
Main (30 laps) --
1. Troy Evans, Kuna, Idaho; 2. Dennis Brodigan, Nampa; 3. Gale Carter, Boise; 4. Terry Lydell, Mountain Home, Idaho; 5. Rick Baldwin, Middleton, Idaho
Fast Dash (8 laps) --
1. Evans; 2. Lydell; 3. Brodigan; 4. Baldwin; 5. Phillip Zubizareta, Boise
B Heat (8 laps)
-- 1. Kyle Burril, Boise; 2. Dave Harris, Meridian; 3. Carter; 4. Jeff Wilson, Mountain Home; 5. Greg Wright
Fast time --
Brodigan, 14.998
Mini Stocks
Main (30 laps) --
1. Quentin Ward; 2. John Ellsworth; 3. Kirk Sanders, Nampa; 4. Dell Scott, Nampa; 5. Tyler Burlingame, Meridian
Fast Dash (8 laps) --
1. Jason Sanders, Caldwell, Idaho; 2. Scott Shoecraft; 3. Eddie Abels, Meridian; 4. Ray Bolinger, Meridian; 5. Jason Pitz, Twin Falls, Idaho
B Heat (8 lap) --
1. Jeff Hasson; 2. Donovan Parker, Boise; 3. Tyler Burlingame, Meridian; 4. Jason Lampman; 5. Jamey Frostrom
C Heat (8 laps)
-- 1. Quentin Ward; 2. John Ellsworth; 3. Dell Scott, Nampa; 4. Matt Barfus; 5. Sara Shaw
D Heat (8 laps)
-- 1. Wade Hensley, Twin Falls; 2. Todd Seaver; 3. Barry Taylor; 4. Everett Meeks; 5. Tommy Downes, Nampa
Fast time --
Abels, 15.815
Legends
Austin Christopherson Memorial Cup (40 laps) --
1. Ben Matheson; 2. Brandon Frasier, Nampa; 3. Don Millbourn, Nampa; 4. Josh Allen; 5. Brent Collins, McCall, Idaho
Fast Dash (8 laps) --
1. Darin Turpen, Nampa; 2. Tom Matheson; 3. Camron Madsen, Boise; 4. Travis Anderson, Boise; 5. Ben Matheson
B Heat (8 laps)
-- 1. Connor Elliott, Meridian; 2. Cameron Cotta, Meridian; 3. Rob Collins, McCall, Idaho; 4. Ron Hayes, Boise; 5. Josh Allen
C Heat (8 laps)
-- 1. Brandon Frasier; 2. Matt Irving; 3. Sara Henry; 4. Mark Zirschky; 5. Rod Stiller
Fast time --
Travis Anderson, 15.831
Jr. Stingers
Championship main (20 laps) --
1. Andrew Clark, Meridian; 2. Aly Clark, Meridian; 3. Colton Nelson, Meridian; 4. Jonathan Hull; 5. Michael Williams
Fast Dash (6 laps) --
1. Caitlin Stroebel, Nampa; 2. Aly Clark; 3. Andrew Clark; 4. Chance Davis; 5. Nelson
B Heat (6 laps) --
1. Hull; 2. Williams; 3. Brock Arte; 4. Matthew Berger
Fast time --
Andrew Clark, 18.133
