Jensen masterful in feature victory
BY STEPHEN LYNCH Special to The Californian
Lee Jensen’s biggest challenge wasn’t finding enough speed to win the Super Street feature Saturday night at Bakersfield Speedway.
It was trying to hold off the cars chasing him as he spent much of the 25-lap race weaving through and around lapped traffic.
Jensen did it masterfully, setting himself up to be able to out-duel Brian Shepherd for the victory in a green-white-checkered finish.
“This thing is just fast, there’s no two ways about it,” Jensen said.
Lonnie Welch, Billy Simkins and Ray Moroquin rounded out the top five.
Early in the race Jensen narrowly avoided running into Richard Harrison after Harrison, about to be lapped, spun out in turn four.
Brent Hosfeldt claimed a hard-fought victory in the 20-lap American Stock A-main.
Hosfeldt, who was 10th on the starting grid, worked his way up through traffic and passed Marcus Wankum with 11 laps remaining for the lead and never relinquished it.
Traci Childress, Teena Childress, Matt Lewis, and Wankum finished second, third, fourth, and fifth respectively.
Wankum took advantage of a mechanical problem by early frontrunner Kyle Mitchell to lead the for six laps.
He later survived lap eight door-to-door contact with Don Mead. But the incident caused Mead to spin out and brought out a caution.
Less than a lap after the ensuing restart Hosfeldt caught and passed Wankum.
It’s the second feature win row for Hosfeld.
“I just tried not to overdrive it,” he said.
Earlier in the evening Brian Childress won his division-leading fifth heat race of the year.
Ronnie “Monster” Williams of Las Vegas won a CDCRA feature that was shortened by five laps due to a plethora of caution flags.
Williams passed Delvin Autry on lap eight of 15 to become the race’s third and final leader.
“This is a very nice car,” Williams said. “It’s brand-new.”
Autry took second, followed by Travis Brand, Luke Boles, and Austin Figueroa.
During the CDCRA’s first heat race Anthony Barket was involved in horrific looking crash. His car hit the front stretch wall going nearly full-speed and then went high in the air, flipping end-over-end before landing hard on its right side.
Fortunately the Templeton driver was able to walk away unharmed.
In other action Joseph Snyder of West Lake Village claimed his second Senior Mini Dwarf feature win of the season.
Snyder zipped past early leader Nicholas Johnson right after a lap-four restart and the later pulled away to a huge advantage during a two-lap dash to the finish following the race’s second caution.
Points-leader Cameron McCauley took second place. Tyler Bannister was third Brylon Holder came home fourth and Karson Sylvester was fifth.
Gavin Manning won a caution-filled junior Mini Dwarf A-main event.
One lap after the race’s third restart, Manning sped by Troy Morris III and Bryson Wood on the outside to take the lead and never looked back.
Morris III went on to finish second. Andrew Orland was third, followed by Kaden Cochrun and Lela Brogdon
