Racing Results for Opening Night at the "Burg"

Racing Results for Opening Night at "The Burg"

West Georgia Speedway, did not let anyone down, as the place was packed with drivers, and with fans. This should make Sammy Duke the owner very proud, as people were still arriving even after "Hot Laps" had begun.

We have the following results of the top 3 cars in each class, so lets get going.
In the Modified Mini class, the winner was the #07 of long time winning car Frank Long, he was followed in 2nd place by #19 of Richard Dale and coming in close in third was long time champion driver Richard Bagby.
In the Enduro class, the winner was car #M4 driven by Winford Minnex, in his purple hot rod. He was followed by Charlie Garrett driving the hard charging #GT13 and finishing in 3rd place was #12 of Gary Brand.


In the hot Hobby car race we saw the #42 of Chad Wallace and in a close 2nd place was the legendary #69 of Rosco Collins. Coming in 3rd was the #B1 of Mark Smith. The Famous #3 driven by Jeff Carter, came in 4th
Then we had an Intermission, so that everyone would be ready for the start of the Crate Car race plus Sportsman event. One thing for sure is that the money tree was growing as the concession stand up top was filled with hungry race fans and that was good for Sammy and the Dukes. The line was long, but the food was great, so it never mattered how long you waited in the line, all the food was tasty, and hot when you got it.
The Crate car proved to be somewhat exciting, Mark Knight in his famous K17 was flying around the track trying his best to catch the #8 car driven by Michael Keener, who at one time was the promoter of the late great 7 Flags Speedway in Douglasville, Georgia. Keener had more than enough motor underneath his hood to make sure he finished 1st in the Crate race, followed in 2nd by #16 every blazing Tony Kemp, who is a drivers worst nightmare as Tony always has enough car underneath him, to blaze past anyone, all except on this Opening night. In 3rd place was the #19 car of Jeremy Hall.

Then the crowd stood as the Sportsman cars rumbled onto the track, lots of cars except the #99 of Rucker Orr who in qualifying messed his engine up, and he went up in smoke. As I was watching Rucker take hot laps I could see his car was sending smoke everywhere, and I knew something was not right for this all time winner. He was not having the night he was expecting. It is amazing because if Rucker Orr's motor had not seized up, he would have been on the pole, that is how fast his car was. So as the feature was called all the Sportsman pulled onto the front straight and we could see we were going to have a good race. When the green flag was dropped car #18c, which was Shane Criswell, showed no intention of giving up his lead, as a matter of fact he widened the gap and made the cars running in 2nd and 3rd do some heavy duty battling. Car #25 driven by Scott Duffy tried everything he could to catch Shane but there did not seem to be enough time in the race. So Scott Duffy had to finish in 2nd place and coming in third place, was a long time racing star #0 of Craig Scott.
Then it was time for "Bumper Cars" as I call them the Pure Mini class, these are some of the newest drivers to enter the sport. Some have driven for years and it proves it, then we had some real new comers to the racing world, the black and yellow #3 of Robbie Carter son of Hobby car champ Jeff Carter was just more or less getting his feet wet. My eye's were on him, and I was hoping he would not hit a wall. As I was filming Robbie, I had a feeling something was going to happen to his car, but nothing did and he did like his Father Jeff told him to do and was hang back in the back of the pack and make smooth turns and keep in the middle of the race track until he had gotten more courage up to take on the big boys in this class.

Robbie's Mother was on Stress level 10, but came down when she saw the flagman throw the checked flag ending the pure mini race. All in all 18 cars started the race and Robbie Carter finished in 11th place. Not to bad for a rookie, lets see what he does next weekend.

I wonder if his mother will have more stress pills on hand?.
Coming in 1st in the pure mini class was car #54 of Norm Chambers, and in 2nd place was car #16 of Eric Hogsed, and finishing 3rd was car driven by Randy Brady Sr. in his famous car #21.
The night was super long for myself as I had about as much trouble as Rucker Orr, Mark Sims and other drivers, as my faithful camera was giving away. quitting 2 times on me I had to go back to the days of filming via video tape, and not using my DVR recorder for burning as the race went on. So now I am faced with some major trouble, and that is I will have to go out and spend some real hard cash on a Digital Camera, that is High Def quility. So I am looking at maybe over $3 to $4 thousand dollars easy. But like I always say if you want to do things right you need the proper tools, in this case video equitment is a MUST. Have a super day or better night and see you at West Georgia Speedway next Saturday night!.



Thanks, Tino Patti a Freelance Video Journalist/ and MSA reporter