Fairgrounds Raceway
Santa Maria, California

May 17, 1997 - Fairgrounds Raceway
From: Gary Roberts

The sixth meeting for the season took place at Fairgrounds Raceway, Santa Maria, CA on Saturday night. It was also the second round of the points series.

The weather in California has been hot for the last week. It was over 100 F at my house in San Jose and even though Santa Maria is fairly near the coast, Saturday afternoon was a hot one. Despite the many truck loads of water that had been lavished on the track all week, it was not up to its normal standard. For the first few races the track was heavy, making turns 1 and 2 particularly difficult. As the evening went on it got better, but then dried out. Several holes appeared, requiring the pole to be moved out. Everyone took home a good coating of track on the tops of their cars. Despite all this, the first thing that A final winner, Randy DiFrancesco said to me after the races, was what a great track!

Results:
Robbie Sauer       14
Randy Difrancesco  14
Brian Thompson     13
Brad Sauer          9
Charlie Powell      9
Bobby Campbell      9
Mark Hitchcock      8
John VanderMuellen  7
Marvin Sonnier      7
Billy Lyons         6
Gerry Dutweiler     6
Jeff Smith          5
Mark Maynard        5
Tim Appel           4
Jimmy Collins       1
Paul Baldwin        1
Doug Shaw           0 reserve, 2 rides

A final:
DiFrancesco, R.Sauer, Thompson, B. Sauer, Hitchcock
B final:
Hitchcock, Powell, Campbell, VanderMuellen, Sonnier
C final:
Sonnier, Lyons, Duttweiler, Smith, Collins (n/s)
D final:
Collins, Baldwin, Appel (n/s), Maynard (n/s), Shaw (n/s)

Last year's points champion, Randy DiFrancesco made his first appearance of the season and took a well deserved win. But it did not come easily. The A final got started 5 times.

May be it was the warmer weather, maybe the word is getting around. The crowd was by far the biggest one so far this season. As a new attraction in a predominantly rural area, its taking a while, but the fact that the crowd is growing each week is encouraging.

Next week the points series continues.

Gary Roberts - gary_rob@ix.netcom.com