Pounds powers to IMCA win

BY STEPHEN LYNCH Special to The Californian

Last year’s Bakersfield Speedway IMCA Modified track champion Brad Pounds demonstrated on Saturday night why he’s once again the man to beat. The talented and always fast local driver narrowly edged Kyle Heckman to win the 25-lap IMCA Modified feature, rebounding from a 20th place finish in last week’s season opener. That poor result was due to a broken transmission. Pounds had no mechanical problems this time and led from wire-to-wire. A total 115 cars raced for 286 laps on the third-mile clay oval. Cody Laney took third. R.C. Whitwell was fourth and Jay Marks crossed the finish line fifth.

Clay Daly of Watsonville made a last-lap pass of Santa Maria’s Chad Webber to win the Super Street feature. Webber led from the drop of the green flag until Daly powered around him in turn two on the final circuit of the 20-lap race. Lonnie Welch was third followed by Brady Bell and Tim Randolph. “Awesome race track but with a big, wide car it was kind of hard to pass,”Daly said.

The 25-lap Sports Mod main event had an even closer finish as Nick Spainhoward edged Lee Jensen for the win by three one-hundredths of a second.

The other main event winners on Saturday night were Ricky Lewis of Oxnard (Mod Lites), Scott Nevin (NMRA Midgets) Anthony Balcazar (Senior Mini Dwarfs), and Kabe McClenny (Junior Mini Dwarfs).