Childress’s dominate at Speedway
BY STEPHEN LYNCH-for the Californian
Saturday night at Bakersfield Speedway unofficially turned into Rick Childress Night after both Rick Childress Sr. and Rick Childress Jr. claimed impressive back-to-back feature wins.
Childress Jr. won the 25-lap SportMod feature race immediately following his father’s victory in the IMCA Stock main event.
Childress Jr. passed early-leader Austin Manzella on the inside in the apex of turns one and two with seven laps to go in the SportMod main event and then pulled away to earn his seventh win of the year.
Nick Spainhoward edged Manzella for second place. James Cecil took fourth and Garret Jernagan finished fifth.
“This is my third race in this car,” Childress Jr. said. “We’re still trying to figure it out. I’m glad we got it done tonight.
Childress Sr. and Troy Patee each led one-half of the 20-lap IMCA Stock main event. But it was Childress that led the half that counted and registered his third feature win of the year.
Childress winning move came on Lap 11 when he powered past Patee going into turn three.
“The car was really good,” Childress said. “I had it over-tightened (earlier in the night) but my guys got it worked out.”
Patee held on to finish in second place. Ron Hurt was third. Mike Hill Jr. placed fourth and Pat Biggs came home in fifth.
Earlier, in an emotional ceremony the track announced that it has dubbed the racing action set to take place at the third-mile clay oval on August 29, the first annual “Mike Moshier Classic,” in honor of the speedway’s popular long-time PA announcer. Moshier has prostate cancer that has metastasized into his bones and will take a prolonged leave of absence the next day to be with his family in Arizona where he will receive chemotherapy treatment. Moshier, AKA “The Race Doctor,” began working for the local track in 1994. He raced cars for about a decade starting in the mid 1960’s.
Trevor Baker ran away with the 20-lap American Stock feature race. Baker started on the outside of the front row and led the entire way in claiming his first career main event victory.
Baker said he did very little to the car after he won his heat race earlier in the evening.
“We cleaned the fuel filter, adjusted the tire pressure, and put some gas in it,” Baker said.
Roger Holder was second followed by Mark Irwin, Tyler Johnson, Brian Childress. Traci Childress, the points-leader coming into the night finished sixth, allowing her cousin Brian Childress to unofficially pull into a tie with her for first place in the standings.
A poor restart by Scott Meisner with seven laps to go allowed Jesse Mack to go to the lead and win the IMCA Western RaceSaver Sprint Car main event.
Meisner led the entire race until it he couldn’t get his car up to speed coming to the green flag at the conclusion of the race’s first caution.
I don’t know what happened,” Mack said. “I was waiting on him and waiting on him. I think hiss motor stumbled or something. I jumped on the gas and hit him and went back to third. Kind of thought it might be over for us at that point. But we managed to go to the top and get it done.”
Prior to the yellow flag coming out Mack was closing ground on Meisner, who on Lap 21 was involved in a three-car accident that ended his night of racing.
Only three of the seven-car field finished the race. Chris Ennis was the runner-up. Mauro Simone took third.
Jeff Thompson capped off the night by winning the 20-lap Mod Lite main event . Jeff Fry was second and Jerry Flippo took third.
“I don’t know what to say right now,” Thompson said after his first main event win of the year. “I’m wore out.”
