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SoCal USRA Scale Race # 4  Foster’s Raceway Santa Maria CA

  SoCal USRA’s fourth event in this year’s scale series was held in the beautiful central California coast town of Santa Maria. The spring weather and clear skies were a treat for those who had time to venture outside and for those who didn’t the competition was plenty hot inside the raceway.   Bill VanDerzeil and Steve Foster did their usual great job preparing the raceway for the event and the hillclimb even featured an upgraded power system for this race.

  Newcomers to Foster’s found their slot car museum a treat with an amazing collection of racing and vintage slot cars.

  Amateur 4” Nascar drew 15 racers and was the usual big round robin. Dennis Rios looked like the man to beat opening with an outstanding 33 on the difficult red lane.  Joey and Daniel Hudson ran very strong early and Colin Herzig began to consistently run strong heats. Dennis continued to look strong until a 29 lap heat on the black lane put Dennis in the clutches of young Colin Herzig who was hungry for his first SoCal Amateur win. In one of the closest finishes in Amateur GP10 memory Colin held off Dennis by less than a lap with Daniel and Joey Hudson less than a lap back in third and fourth. Jimmy Ross, Phil Phillips, Garrett VanDerzeil and Gary Jones filled out the top eight in 4” GP10 Nascar.   Great Nascar racing on a challenging drivers track.   BIG congrats to Colin who has only been racing for about nine months and has worked incredibly hard to earn that first win! We know he is very happy right now.

   The Experts saw a full field with Radisich, Mike Hudson, and Duran taking off in a three car breakaway battle for the lead with Radisich building a four lap lead over Duran and Mike by the half way point, and protecting it for the rest of the race as Chris moved to the slower lanes where a mistake can cost you dearly.  In the end the podium was Chris Radisich by four followed by Mike Hudson with Duran two more back in third. Paul Sterrett was fourth, Steve Forsyth fifth and followed by Jonathan Forsyth, Gil Rivera and Bill V. who broke in the last heat after a good race.

   Amateur 4.5” Nascar drew 10 entries and the coveted Slixx Decal Challenge Concourse award again went to Robert Stubb’s amazing detailing on an Exide Ford Taurus.   In the race Daniel Hudson started strong with back to back 29 lap heats to take the lead and then held off a challenge from Phil Phillips to win by five. Third was Jimmy Ross with Mike Hudson SR. fourth, Gary Jones fifth and Andrew Ross sixth.   Paul Abbey, Joey Hudson, Bob Abbey and Robert Stubbs rounded out the field.

   Expert 4.5” drew 7 entries with concourse Guru Gil Rivera taking the Slixx Challenge.  Duran took off in the lead and just kept stretching it to five over BP mate Mike Hudson who had a challenge from Chris Radisich and Paul Sterrett for second.  Radisich ended up third less than a lap behind Hudson but less than a lap ahead of Paul Sterrett. Fifth was Steve Forsyth and followed by Gil Rivera and Jonathan Forsyth.

   Amateur GT-1 was a runaway 16 lap victory for local hotshot Dennis Rios. Terry Thompson and UK’s “Uncle” Phil Phillips battled for second with Phil taking it by one.  Joey Hudson was one more back in fourth with UK’s Colin Herzig and Tim Hould fifth and sixth. “Big Brian” Johnson and Daniel Hudson filled out the top eight.   

   Expert GT-1 was another strong performance by Duran, who won by five and Chris Radisich who had five in hand at the end over Roy Hood in third. In fourth but less than a lap behind Roy was “semi-expert”  Paul Sterrett with an awesome drive. Mike Hudson pulled down fifth with Steve Forsyth sixth and followed by Jonathan Forsyth, Bob Scott, Jason Stone, Gil Rivera and Bill V.

   Amateur GT-12 drew an even dozen of SoCal’s fastest scale racers to the line for a big round robin.   Phil Phillips, Colin Herzig, Daniel Hudson and Tim Hould all started strong and kept running consistently high heat totals. Colin set high heat at 40 laps and fast time at 4.12 seconds but a twenty three lap heat on yellow spoiled the young Uncle Kal’s racer’s chances of a second win for the weekend.  Daniel Hudson was looking strong until a twenty eight lap heat on orange dropped Daniel back ten laps and took him out of contention for the win. Daniel’s departure left the battle for the win to Phil Phillips and Tim Hould. Tim was ten laps down starting the eleventh heat but was on a tear the last two heats but Phil Phillips was not to be denied and took the five lap win with Tim second, Daniel Hudson taking the last podium spot, Terry Thompson took fourth, John “Wheel Thing” Emmons was fifth, “Big Brian” sixth, Colin Herzig, who looked like the guy to beat early settled for seventh, and Joey Hudson was eighth.  Cliff Kendrick was ninth, Dennis Rios tenth with Paul and Bob Abbey rounding out the twelve man round robin.

   Expert GT-12 was a three way battle between Chris Radisich, Roy Hood and the ballistically fast Casey Scott. Expert GT-12 was missing familiar names Alan Ohren, Duran Trujillo, Monty Ohren and Greg G. who were still not caught up from the USRA Div 2 Nats.   Radisich avoided the wrecks as Roy and Casey battled back and fourth and with Radisich two up and Hood and Scott tied going into the last heat the race was still up for grabs. After some very close, wheel to wheel racing Radisich won by three with Casey just edging Roy by less than a lap for second and John Torre Anderson a strong fourth.  Jonathan Forsyth was fifth, with Bob Scott sixth and followed by Ventura’s Jason Stone and the high desert’s Steve Forsyth.    

  Thank’s to Bill VanDerzeil, Steve Foster and all those who contributed to making this race a success!  See you next month at Green Flag in Hesperia!