Rutz & Vaughn win at Skagit Speedway
ALGER, Washington -- The weekend after the Jim Raper Memorial Dirt Cup at Skagit Speedway is usually pretty relaxed and quiet. Teams usually spend the weekend regrouping from the 3 day racing festival and get their cars ready for the points wars the upcoming weeks. Travis Rutz won the Budwesier 360 main, with Robby Vaughn winning the Cook Road Shell Sportsman Sprint main event. The Wilson Auto Broker Outlaw Hornet twin main events were captured by “Pirate” Bill McMeekin and Brett Lloyd. Travis Alsup won the NW Sportsman Midget race and the Berry Dairy Days Demolition Derby was won by JR Oliveras in spectacular fashion.
Northwest Auto-Max 410 Sprint points leader Chad Hillier and runner-up Rick Fauver brought out their 360 Sprinters and joined an already healthy field of racers to make a 34 car field in the Budweiser 360 Sprints. Hillier and Fauver both turned top 4 lap times, but it didn’t matter in the end as Travis Rutz in his regular 360 ride hammered the field. Rutz started the night setting fast time at 12.152 seconds around the famed 3/10th mile high banked clay oval of Skagit Speedway. Rutz led the first 12 laps with rookie sensation Evan Funk glued to his rear nerf bar. At the end of the 12th lap Funk threw down a major two-turn slide job to take the lead at the line, but then the car slipped up high in turn two and Rutz drove back around Funk to retake the lead. It was all Rutz from then on out as he completed the 25-lap race a quarter lap ahead of Funk for his first 360 main event win of the year. Funk was second with Fauver making a late race run to finish third just about taking the runner-up spot from Funk twice on the last lap. Jared Ridge, Fauver and Jayme Barnes won heat races and one of the most entertaining races of the night was the Heat 3 battle between Marc Huson and Brock Lemley. The two battled wheel to wheel and nose to tail for all 8 laps before Lemley won the race to the line for the win. Lemley deserves kudos for the way he has driven the wheels off every race car he has been in for the last three weeks, many of those charges coming from deep in the field, passing many race cars and bringing the fans to their feet.
A lot of visitors this week to the Budweiser 360 wars. In addition to 410 racers Fauver, Hillier, Barnes and Steve Parker, the class saw Fairbanks, Alaska driver Ernie Saeger, Quilcene, WA’s JJ Hickle, and Oregon’s Brendan Boyce visit the track possibly as warm-up for the upcoming 360 Nationals in August. Sportsman Sprint driver Glen Reinstra kept the restrictors out of his injectors and the big wing on that he ran at Dirt Cup and ran the 360 division tonight as well.
While Rick Smith leads the Cook Road Shell Sportsman Sprint points chase, it’s second year driver Robby Vaughn that was the driver to watch Saturday night. Vaughn had a clean sweep winning his heat race and the 20-lap feature. Other heat race winners were Kelsey Carpenter and Eric Fisher. In the main Kelsey Carpenter led the first 5 laps. Carpenter is almost unbeatable when gets a front row starting spot, but tonight Vaughn has the car set-up perfectly and showed, by first running Carpenter down, then passing him and moving out to a nice comfortable lead for the win. Carpenter took the runner-up slot and Fisher finished third. Smith passed a lot of cars after starting far back on the grid to finish fourth and keep his points lead. Colton Heath rounded out the top 5.
There were six NW Sportsman Midget drivers that invaded the Skagit clay. Ron Miller won the heat race and Travis Allsup was the feature winner.
Winning for the first time in the Wilson Auto Brokers Outlaw Hornet division was “Pirate” Bill McMeekin in the first main. McMeeking took over the lead from points leader Mike Powers, Jr. when Powers mistook the furled black flag point at another driver as intended for him and slowed down, by the time he realized his mistake, McMeekin was long gone. In the second main event, Brett Lloyd scored his first main event of the win in the ugliest Outlaw Hornet car ever driven. His car is named “White Lightning” and is very fast, but truly very ugly. Heat race winners were Powers, Jr. and Travis Meins. Both mains saw heavy vehicle attrition as it appeared some of the drivers thought the demo derby had started early.
For former Marine and Iraq War veteran JR Oliveras the demo derby seemed to be a perfect fit for his battle skills. Oliveras pounded the other 6 six cars into submission to dominate the event and win for car owner Apex Towing. Wendy Johnson won best appearing car with a #95 Johnny Lightning replica.
RESULTS 6/24/06
BUDWEISER 360 SPRINTS
Fast time: 8r Travis Rutz 12/152Heat 1: 12 Jared Ridge, 8r Rutz, 38 Jason Bloodgood, 69t John Tharp, 66 Barry Martinez
Heat 2: 9 Jayme Barnes, 5 Chad Hillier, 10c Cory Chamberlain, 69 Rod Perkins, 42 Alan Munn
Heat 3: 40 Brock Lemley, 73 Marc Huson, 29 Brandon Harkness, 8e Evan Funk. 4d Brady Dart
Heat 4: 26 Rick Fauver, 59 Seth Bergman, 18 Steve Kilcup, 7k Danny Kirkpatrick, 24 Nick Evans
B Main: 66 Martinez, 8 Blake Brigge, 24 Evans, 23 Steve Parker, 98 Bob Stevens, 9f Ernie Seager, 67 Colton Seddon, 3 Dan Pierson, 42 Munn, 13gr Glen Reinstra, 4d Dart, 65 Brendan Boyce, 21 Chris Pattenaude, 59j Jim Hard, 44 Michael Harris
A Main: 8r Travis Rutz, 8e Funk, 26 Fauver, 12 Ridge, 40 Lemley, 59 Bergman, 9 Barnes, 29 Harkness, 66 Martinez, 69t Tharp, 38 Bloodgood, 18 Kilcup, 73 Huson, 8 Brigge, 10c Chamberlain, 69p Perkins, 7k Kirkpatrick, 5 Hillier COOK ROAD SHELL SPORTSMAN SPRINTS
Heat 1: 79k Kelsey Carpenter, 06 Josh DeWitt, 14 Kelleigh Johnson, 25 Karl Blumenhagen, 90 Martin Koetje
Heat 2: 21 Robby Vaughn, 13c Colton Heath, 89 Lake Gemmer, 22 Todd Rork, 29w Steve James
Heat 3: 59 Eric Fisher, 69 Justin Knowles, 75 Kevin Smith, 8 Matt LeHay, 47 Boyd Starr
Main: 21 Robby Vaughn, 79k Carpenter, 59 Fisher, 75 Smith, 13c Heath, 06 DeWitt, 90 Koetje, 69 Knowles, 14 Johnson, 22 Rork, 3v Dave Mead, 29w James, 72 Marcus Schutte, 8 LeHay, 9 Paul Burdick, 25 Blumenhagen, 0z Jarrid Zimmerman, 47 Starr, 89 Gemmer
NW Sportsman Midgets
Heat: 2 Ron Miller, 69 Travis Allsup, 77 Randy Allsup, 1a Jeremy Fisk, 8 Kyle Hobbs
Main: 69 Travis Allsup
Wilson Auto Brokers Outlaw Hornets
Heat 1: 26 Mike Powers, Jr., 8 Ken Higby, 88 Jim Solver, 100% Tracy Wilson, 29 Brett Lloyd
Heat 2: 7 Travis Meins, 24 Mike Ploeg, 30 Matt VanDerSys, 25 James Sims, 11m Bill McMeekin
Main 1: 11m Bill McMeekin, 43 Chris Erickson, 9p Stacey Dahl, 19 Greg Hibma, 26 Powers, Jr., 85 Dexter Dahl, 6% Jesse Eldridge, 49 Jon Edwards, 06 Cory Swatzina, 88 Solver, 30 VanDerSys, 3 Scott Naylor, 55 Greg Morgan, 27 Bill Tomer, 44 Josh Hanson, 24 Mike Ploeg, 41 Wendy Johnson, 100% Wilson
Main 2: 29 Brett Lloyd, 0 Terry Feeney, 01 Ryan Nootenboom, 25 Sims, 40 Mike Powers, Sr., 39 Tyler Ketchum, 108 Chad Solomon, 58 Eric Fiero, 12 Matt Cozza, 62 Nils Freeman, 46 Mark Richmond, 99 Russell Stone, 8 Ken Higby, 7 Meins, 35 Ryan Belik, 54 John Piazza, 66s Larry Kwik
Berry Dairy Days Demo Derby
1st Place – J.R. Olivares, Rick Young, Matt Cozza
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