Tankersley wins 82 Speedway Sprint Car Bandit feature at 82 Speedway - Michael Day takes Championship

[NickHolt]

35 Sprint Car Bandits Teams Close Season at 82 with Tankersley Winning Battle – and Day Winning War

Petty, TX (11/08/20) - A spectacular late-season weather day greeted fans and 35 series teams (from 5 states) as they converged upon 82 Speedway for the Sprint Car Bandits® series finale as a part of the 2nd Annual Paul Peters Memorial event. When adding the 82 Speedway division teams – who turned out in droves – the final car count total pushed to 159 entries.

The Sprint Car Bandits (SCB) would be the second division out all night long, and the field would be split into four 10-lap qualifying heat races. The top 16 in total finishing and passing points would be ushered directly to the 25-lap series finale, while the balance of the field would be broken into two B-feature events.

In the drivers meeting, it was expressed that with so many teams in attendance, that the series wanted to add more full-paying feature race starters in appreciation for the large turnout. So, a sponsor challenge was established to raise the purse in order to add two more starters.

And that’s exactly what happened.

In no time, Old School Racing (Bruce Griffith/Channin Tankersley), Al Mallory, Amber Stasa and DarinShort.com all put up $100 cash each and presented it to 82 Speedway owners Shelley and Tracy Peters, and instead of the track paying two B-feature non-qualifiers $100 each, they transferred that money towards the A-feature, and so each driver added to the field would receive full $300 to start money.

The top two heat race finishers would go directly to the $700 to win Cabinets by Tommy Dash for Cash. And what a jaw-droppingly wild 6-lapper would ensue.

The Dash would start off with Colby Estes, fresh off a trip down the aisle – wedding aisle, that is – would blast off to an impressive lead with Casey Burkham and Channin Tankersley exchanging sliders directly behind.

Midway through, while attempting to track down Estes, Burkham would get sucked into the slurpy upper ledge of the corner three cushion, while he got hard on the binders to avoid hitting the wall, it set off a chain reaction with Oklahoma’s Jase Randolph getting crossed up leaving the 99B of John Ricketts nowhere to go, clipping the front end of Jase’s car and sending Ricketts tumbling through the corner.

Ricketts would emerge from the mangled machine unscathed – but it would put an unplanned and early end to his night.

The Dash for Cash would resume with Colby Estes proving no one was a match for him and claiming the $700 winners share.

There was a Dash Challenge set up by Sherry and Tommy Bryant of Cabinets by Tommy beforehand, that if a front row driver chose to start at the tail, come back through the field and win, they would pay them an additional $300 – making the Dash worth $1,000 to win. No driver took up the Challenge, so that $300 would roll over to a very stout Hard Charger award in the A-feature.

After a pair of B-features (again, with 3 cars advancing each instead of two), the feature line up would be set with Channin Tankersley amassing the most points after starting 8th in his heat race and vaulting his way through the field to a heat race win.

Jase Randolph would be slated to start outside front row after an impressive heat race run after starting in 9th position. However Randolph would not be able to make repairs in time to make the call for the feature event, which was a big letdown for the team – and all of the instant fans he made from his heat race performance. However, Randolph would still be paid full start money without taking the green, as would Ricketts and Louisiana’s Koty Adam (engine woes after blistering the field in his heat race piloting the potent Ewell-owned sprinter based out of Forney).

One thing not mentioned at this point in the event recap was the Sprint Car Bandits season points championship war between Michael Day and Claud Estes III. Day would fire off from the 15th starting spot and Estes 10th row inside.

When the green flag would unfurl for the A-feature, the thundering field was utilizing low, middle and high grooves across the ‘Land of the XL’ with lap times in the 11-second bracket and Tankersley establishing the point position early on.

As Tankersley would encounter lapped traffic on lap 5, the caution lights flashed for a quick spin in corner three. The race would resume, and at that point a scary crash would take place on the backstretch that saw second place driver Willy Reed taking a very hard tumble.

Everyone took a big sigh of relief when Reed would emerge from his destroyed sprint car ending his spectacular run (in only his 2nd ever series start). We were thankful for Willy making the long haul from the Houston area to race with us and we look forward to him joining us again next season when his schedule allows.

Back under green, Tankersley would continue his assault on the 82 Speedway high banks with Casey Burkham and Chad Wilson in tow – setting up a classic dual that has become commonplace with the Sprint Car Bandits series.

With laps clicking off, Burkham would close within a one-car length striking distance on numerous occasions, with Tankersley finding a way to slip away in lapped traffic.

Meanwhile the series points war would rage on mid-field between Day and Estes. At one point, Estes would lead the pair, with Day moving back in front of Estes – and protecting his points lead.

Back up front to the lead pair, Tankersley continued to thread his way through lapped traffic, with Burkham still within striking distance, but laps would run out with Tankersley taking home the final checkers of the season and picking up a $2,000 winner’s share with Burkham about 15 car lengths behind.

Series invader Chase Brewer would advance from 14th to finish in the third position – after running a clean, solid race the entire event.

Christian Kinnison ended up coming from 16th to 4th when he took the checkers – which also made him the event’s Cabinets by Tommy Hard Charger – and collecting an additional $300 for his efforts.

Rounding out the top five, was an incredibly impressive run by 13-year-old Landon Thompson, piloting the Danny Merrell-owned #F41 sprinter.

Now that the battle has been fought, lets turn to the winner of the war.

Michael Day would finish ahead of Claud Estes III and collect his first-ever Series championship of any kind and established himself as the 2020 Sprint Car Bandits series champion! We’d like to congratulate their entire team on the hard-fought accomplishment, and joins the ranks of Michael Lang, Colby Estes and Will Eggimann as former champions.

We’d like to take this moment to thank all of the race track operators, track workers, series workers, sponsors, race fans, racing teams and safety crews that helped make this season the most successful ever – even in troubling times – and now our eyes turn to the 2021 season, where the Series has rebranded itself to the Bandits Outlaw Sprint Series.

To view the recent announcement about this transition to open cubic inch engines for the 2021 season, click www.2021BOSS.com for the whole scoop, as our mission of providing a more sustainable form of sprint car racing for all teams continues.

More information will be coming in the weeks to follow, and the Series already has seven more $2,000 to win and $300 to start dates confirmed than there were in 2020. The base purse for next year is one in the same…at all tracks.

The Bandits Outlaw Sprint Series continues their alliance with the RaceSaver IMCA Texas Sprint Series and the intertwined schedules are far into the process with over 30 dates between the two already confirmed. Both collective schedules (that feature no events on top of each other, as in 2020) will be released in the weeks to come. Until then, we’d like to wish you and your loved ones the best upcoming Holiday Season ever and a spectacular Christmastime. Be watching for the latest updates on both series at www.2021BOSS.com and at www.raceTSS.com.

Here are the results from the www.AirPerformanceDFW.com Sprint Car Bandits feature event at 82 Speedway in Petty Texas on 11/7/20:

17 – Channin Tankersley
45B – Casey Burkham
25 – Chase Brewer
82C – Christian Kinnison
F41 – Landon Thompson
2 – Michael Day
44 – Jason Howell
74E – Claud Estes III
67 – Rodney Henderson
1C – Brenham Crouch
72 – Chris Tarrant
6M – Blake Mallory
41 – Casey Merrell
00 – Jaden Brown
55 – Brad Queen
71 – Colby Estes
82 – Austin Saunders
20 – Chad Wilson
3W – Willy Reed
15 – Jase Randolph
19 – Koty Adams
99B – John Ricketts