Hello race fans. The Camping World West series which was formerly known as the Winston West Series made another stop at Toyota Speedway of Irwindale this past Saturday night. On the racing card was a 40 lap King Taco Super Truck race along with a 40 lap Auto Club Late Model race. And of course the main event was the 200 lap Camping World West race. 17 year old Conner Cantrell from Valencia, California won his second Super Truck race in a row and has also won the last 5 of 7 races. Conner has really been impressive this season showing just how well the younger generation can compete with the older drivers. The younger crowd that is up and coming have really flexed their power and really put on good shows for the crowd. These are the only tracks where the younger drivers can actually race and hone their skills without any age limitations. Not like the Nationwide or the Cup series. They are not only exciting to watch. But you would also be surprised at just how well they handle these cars and trucks.

Next on the card were the Auto club late Models. If you remember a couple of weeks ago I wrote about the first female to win a feature race on the half mile. Lindsey King who is only 19 years old was on the pole this Saturday night. She was going for her second win in a row. But the number 15 car of Andrew Myers the winner of the first 5 races and who is also sitting 3rd in points decided to intentionally take Lindsey out after the 3rd lap. They came out of turn 3 racing 3 wide when Myers slid up into her back end and caused her to spin. Luckily she avoided the temporary inside pit wall and continued on. But according to the Whelan series rules. Both she and Myers were sent to the back of the pack. Lindsey eventually worked her way up to a very respectable 8th place finish.

But the night belonged to her car and team owner Tim Huddleston. Tim who was last season’s points champion took over the top spot after the restart and held off the hard charging point’s leader Nick Joanides to take his 3rd win of the season. The win also moved him to within 2 points of tying Joanides for the series points lead. It was a very exciting race as these two hard charging drivers put on one heck of a show. You could also see the respect that the two of them have for each other by the way that they raced each other. It was a very clean and well respected effort by the both of them.  Tim is also involved in the Drive for Diversity program which is sponsored by NASCAR and a few other companies. Within the next couple of weeks I’ll be interviewing Tim and will also do a complete story on the Drive for Diversity program. Lindsey King is one of the drivers who are also participating in the program as an experimental driver for Tim Huddleston’s High Point Racing Team.

The main event of the night was the 200 lap NASCAR Camping World West Race. 29 cars took to the Toyota Speedway half mile to see who would walk with the night’s top prize. Jason Bowles from nearby Ontario, California led wire to wire to take the checkered flag and also the sweep of the series at his home track. He also won back on the 4th of July which was also his first win on an oval track. The early laps of the event were similar to the last visit by the series to Toyota Speedway – with Bowles and Mayhew leading the way. But unlike that event six weeks before, when Mayhew moved by to lead much of the first half of the race, Bowles never relinquished the top spot this time around. The only time he appeared threatened was as he worked lapped traffic. Mayhew and Chris Johnson were each able to close in on the leader, but Bowles would quickly pull away as he cleared traffic.

Chris Johnson as some you may remember is the driver that I featured in the Race for the Cure 150 a couple of weeks back during our GGW Racing series. I have also featured him in a couple of other posts. Chris races for TCR racing which is a privately funded team racing against other drivers who have some big name

sponsors from around the area. As a matter of fact they are looking for sponsors for the 2009 season. They can be reached at www.teamcassracing.com.  Chris started on the front row in the 2nd starting position. As the race started he fell back to as far as 8th place. But then he started to slowly work his way back up and got past the 2nd place car of Mayhew and had his eyes set on the leader Bowles.  

Chris was racing door to door with the leader and looking very dominant when  his racing luck would run out.  He cut a tire once again just like he did on the 4th of July. Except  this time he only went a lap down before the 100 lap mandatory competition yellow.

After the 100 lap break when racing resumed.  Another yellow came out for a wreck in turns 3 and 4 and Chris got the lucky dog which put him back on the lead lap. Chris was once again making up ground on the leaders. But he would eventually run his Goodyears down  and settle for a very respectable 7th place finish. After the race I went to talk with Terri and Jim the car owners. They said they were very impressed with the run that they had and also with the performance of their young driver. This is only there second race in the NASCAR Camping World West Series.  If this is any indication of what’s in the horizon for next season. I’m sure that they will be visiting victory lane before the season is over. Good luck to TeamCassRacing and all the short track drivers from around America. I can’t stress enough the importance for us race fans to go out and support our local tracks. Some of the best racing that I have seen has been by these men and women on a Saturday night who race on limited budgets. I’m Out