NickHolt Posted May 13, 2019 Report Share Posted May 13, 2019 Night of Firsts Nets Another New Sprint Car Bandits Feature Winner at Monarch Motor Speedway Wichita Falls, TX (5/12/19) by DarinShort.com. On the first visit of the Sprint Car Bandits (SCB) to the ultra-modern Monarch Motor Speedway Saturday night, May 11th, a night of firsts, led to several eye-poppers, jaw-droppers and head scratchers as John Carney II would take his first-ever series win. He would become the 17th different Series winner in the past 21 events. Pole Position photoBut his path to victory lane was anything but a walk in the park. Recent heavy rains led to extremely fast and volatile track conditions throughout the evening. The track crews worked feverishly to keep up with demands of the track surface, with all race teams doing a great job keeping the track packed during yellow flag laps and between races. Several times corner workers would scrape the walls so drivers could see through their spent tear-offs where the track ends and the wall began. Action and passing abounded throughout the evening. After gridding 10th in his heat race, Carney II would blister the field in his heat race by not only winning but earning enough points to start on the pole of the feature event. Other big movers in heat race action was Harli White, who drove from 6th to win her heat race, while Will Eggimann would start 8th in his heat race and finish 2nd. White and Eggimann would become the 2nd and 3rd high point drivers and start the feature event outside front row and inside second row, respectively. Not one crash or flip would take place in any of the sprint car heat races – or companion midget heats – as drivers would do a masterful job negotiating the highly technical and fast racing surface. As the feature race fired off, Carney II would take the lead, while Harli would get in a small snafu leading to her rejoining the 22-car starting field from the tail. Her night was far from over. In the meantime, the moisture in the shoe-sucking track surface would keep drivers up-on-the-wheel, as the high speeds and cushion would cause several incidents leading to yellows and a red for the #18 of Logan Scherb. Scherb was on his was possibly going to be his highest SCB feature finish when the incident occurred. In the ensuing restart Carney II would come down to the white stripe from his pole position, when the car appeared to stumble a bit as he hit the throttle, and third place runner Will Eggimann would blast by him on the frontstrech and take command of the event. Eggiman would lead the next ten or so laps with Carney II falling back to as far back as forth as Arkansas’ Tim Crawley would continue to advance through the field from his 16th starting position. After a pair of cautions to remove stuck cars from their infield excursions, a fuel stop was ordered – which is something that had only occurred once before in SCB history. Eggimann would jet back out in front of the field in his well-prepared J&J Chassis sprinter with Carney II climbing his way back to 2nd place, now with Crawley and White in tow, with little signs that anyone had enough to get past Eggimann as the laps wound down. As Eggimann and Crawley came down to the three laps to go mark, disaster struck, resulting in one of the more bizarre situations leaving fans jaws dropped, as they were still trying to process what happened. When the lead pair entered corner one to negotiate the soon-to-be-lapped car of Kodey Keimig, Keimig would dig in to the cushion, sending his #27 sprinter into a series of flips that would shear the top wing off of leader Eggiman’s car as the speeding pair of leaders would pass by. During the ensuing red flag, unharmed physically, yet sans the top wing, Eggimann would quickly determine that he would not resume the feature from his pole restart position and chose to exit to the pit area ending his stellar run against some of the top 360C.I. sprint drivers in the business. The final restart of the event would see Carney II blast off from the second-row pair of Crawley and White, to take the hard-fought and highly popular win. Carney II would entertain the hardcore sprint car fans in the stands by pre-entering his car under the pseudonym "Rusty Pipes." When the fans found out who was really behind the wheel of the car, they all erupted in applause. Harli White would zip past Crawley to finish 2nd – and as a reminder from the tail – to complete her impressive rebound, while Crawley would take the final podium position. We’d like to thank West Texas Raceway for putting up $100 to the night’s Hard Charger, which goes to Dale Wester after advancing 15 spots from his 20th place starting spot. The KoolTrikes.com heat races were won by John Carney II, Dalton Stevens and Harli White. The companion Monarch Midget Championships feature event was a hotly contested battle between Tim Crawley, Kyle Jones, Hank Davis, Wesley Smith and Kevin Ramey. Wesley Smith would take a bite out of the cushion battling with Crawley for the lead, while not getting upside down, Smith would retire from the event. Meanwhile, Hank Davis would drop to the sidelines, leaving Crawley, Jones and Ramey to battle it out. Jones would slip by Ramey to finish 2nd, while Crawley would win by one car length – in a very popular win to the local crowd as his winning car was fielded by local racer/car owner John James. The massive 41-car Limited Modified field would entertain the crowd throughout the night with great side-by-side racing, and their results will be posted as they become official. 30 cars would sign in for Sprint Car Bandits vs NCRA Shootout competition, and full results will be posted along with points in the next few days (there’s one car missing from the scoring loop results here, the 72 of Daniel Estes), so these results are pending his insertion: 45 – John Carney II 17W – Harli White 1X – Tim Crawley 79 – Ryan Hall 12W – Dale Wester 21 – Michelle Melton 9Z – Taylor Courtney 71 – Colby Estes 92 – Jordan Weaver 77W – Will Eggimann 27 – Kodey Keimig 13M – Chance McCrary 99X – Dalton Stevens 57C – Chris Schmelzle 23 – Junior Jenkins 18 – Logan Scherb 18L – Dillon Laden 44 – Jason Howell 10C – Jeremy Campbell V8 – Robert Vetter 35 - Chris Hinson 72 – Daniel Estes (finishing position pending transponder/hand scoring confirmation) Thank you to all the fans that supported the event on an abnormally cool May evening, to one of the hardest working and determined track crews ever witnessed, and to the race teams that all supported the event. Next up for the Sprint Car Bandits series is a pair of $2,000 to win and $300 to start shootout events with the NCRA series, to be contested Saturday May 25th and Sunday May 26th at 81 Speedway in Wichita, Kansas. Details on these events will be posted by mid-week. Until then we hope you enjoy a great Mother’s Day holiday with the family and we look forward to seeing you all back at the track soon! Click www.SprintCarBandits.com for more details and series news. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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