at
Altamont Motorsports Park
Tracy, Calif., October 14th,
2007 - Wilton, Calif's Jason Fensler, #35, was
crowned this year's Big Dog in the Big Dog Open presented by Hoosier
Tire at Altamont Motorsports Park on Sunday afternoon. Fensler
emerged victorious after an exciting and action packed 125 laps of
late model racing on the 1/2-mile that saw a total of six lead changes
throughout the afternoon.
Fensler
was able to escape a fuel shortage pitfall that befell other Big Dog
Open leaders in the waning stages of the race, including Roseville's
#05, Eric Schmidt, #6, Porter Smith of Aztec, NM (left), and #33, Jim
Courage Jr, also of Roseville.
"We did not put a small fuel cell in our car and those other guys
did," said Fensler in victory lane.
"It was a mistake on their part but this is what happens when you
prepare and have a great race car for 125 laps." said Fensler.
Fensler charged 15 positions from the rear of the lead lap after
briefly pitting during a caution on lap 85.
A
battle between track champions took up the better part of the first
half of the race with Altamont's 2007 late model champ, #52, Ryan
Philpott, closely following the race leader, Eric Schmidt, the 2007
late model champion at All American Speedway.
Philpott
retired from the race later in the event for unknown reasons. Schmidt
ran out of gas on lap 108 and went one lap down.
2005 Aztec Speedway Track Champion, Porter Smith, led 22 laps before
running out of gas on lap
110.
Jim Courage inherited the lead from Smith but was passed by Fensler
one lap later.
2006
Busch Series driver #22, Burney Lamar of West Sacramento survived
some left side damage earlier in the race to finish second in the 125
lap event. Lamar started the race in the 24th position after
transferring into the race from the B main held on Saturday.
Mike
Beeler, #26, Greg Potts, #2, and John Dalerio rounded out the top
five.
Troy Shirk finished sixth with Eric Schmidt finishing an amazing
seventh place after putting some fuel in the tank of his '05
Yellowpages.com Chevy on lap
108.
Both Shirk and Schmidt finished one lap down.
Rick Ruzbarsky, Travis McCullough and Lisa Riordan rounded out the top
ten. Riordan started from the rear of the field in position 27 after
being given a promoters exemption
to
enter the race. Riordan missed the transfer spot by one position on
Saturday.
Here's Pete Anderson's, of Stockton, #5 after another car flew
over his hood!
Overall, 33 late models tried to make the field on Saturday afternoon
with 27 finally entering the show.
American Limited
Stock Car veteran Donnie Darter of Stockton had an impressive run in
the 75 lap
ALSC event, taking the lead on the first lap and holding onto the
number one spot for the remaining 74 laps of the race.
Just
five of 19 cars stayed on the lead lap, surviving 75 laps of action
packed racing.
Next year Darter plans to enter the late model ranks and is currently
looking for some sponsors for his ride.
"It is going to be sad to see this car go but it was a beautiful thing
to get this last win in it." said Darter.
The
win was not an easy on for Darter as the 91 of Dennis Saunders kept
pace with Darter in the final 35 laps of the race.
"I don't know how I stayed out of that traffic," said Saunders. "I
had about five or six incidents right in front of me and I was lucky
enough to avoid them all."
"I
raced with Donnie Darter all season long and I wanted this win really
bad." said Saunders.
Saunders started on the pole but faded a bit in the early laps of the
race.
Pete
Anderson Sr and Jim Dulla placed themselves squarely behind Darter in
the first half of the race until an incident on lap 34 finished
Dulla's and Anderson Jr's chances for the afternoon.
Rounding out the top five were Don McLaren, Tim Rappa and Ben Lewis.
Roseville's
Grand American Modified Champion Scott Winters led a wire-to-wire
victory, starting on the pole and taking the win in the 50 lap GAM
event on the half-mile oval that paid $2500 dollars to win.
"I've really got to thank the crew," said Winters. "Last night in the
trophy dash we picked up a vibration and it turned out we found a
broken transmission."
"This morning a new transmission and drive line and all that went into
it so they worked real tough to
get this win for us." said Winters.
Winters
was followed past the stripe by #1, Todd Lynch, Tony Nocetti, (right)
and Rob Vest.
Fourteen year old go-kart racer, Jessica Brunelli of Hayward, driving
in the first full-size car event of
her young career, finished an impressive run in the fifth position of
the 12 modifieds that entered the event. Jessica was recently named
the Skip Barber 2007 Western Regional Race Series "Rookie of
the
Year".
Steve Fensler and Dave
and Justin Philpott chat on the runway at Sunday's race.
Saturday's SRL
Mid-Valley Iron Works 100, the final SRL event of the season, was
captured by Porter Smith who served double duty this weekend, racing
in both the SRL event and Big Dog Open.
2006 Altamont Late Model champion Dave Byrd took home the 2007 SRL
championship after narrowly escaping a late race points charge by
Tracy Bolin.
Source: Jeff Downey/Altamont Motorsports Park