From The Grandstands
by Ron Rodda
3/16/04
Click on pictures to enlarge
Lincoln, CA…The winner in each night of the two day season opening Mini Gold Cup at Chico’s Silver Dollar Speedway had something in common, a car off of the front row lead all the main event laps. Both winners also qualified 10th and, due to the six inversion, benefited from faster qualified cars not making the inversion. The two evenings had much more not in common. Friday’s winner was a nationally known driver, Saturday’s winner was a driver that some Northern California fans had heard of at least once. Friday’s track was greasy for qualifying and fast for the main while Saturday was fast in qualifying and somewhat dry by the time the 40 lap main took center stage. Friday’s winner surprised nobody, Saturday’s winner caught everyone by surprise, maybe even the winning team themselves.
British Columbia driver, 16 year old rookie Travis Rutz, drove this sharp looking car
Absolutely wonderful weather helped fill the stands both nights as the mid-March record setting temperatures created a shirt sleeved gathering for the Northern California outdoor opener. A solid field of 44 cars qualified and Brent Kaeding’s fast time of 13.048, light years off of the track record, came as the 34th car out as later qualifiers definitely had the advantage. Four quickly run ten lap heats, inverting six and transferring four, left five of the fastest eight outside looking in as to a transfer finish. The loaded B main had 4 of that 5 on the front two rows as the remaining car, the 77F wheeled by Shawna Wilskey, missed the call after a hard heat race flip.
Blake Robertson will seek another track title at Chico
With a six inversion and those top cars that timed in quicker starting behind the inversion, Tim Kaeding debuted his new ride with a front row assignment and ran away from the field. The only good thing about the dominating performance by T. Kaeding was the chance to focus on the racing behind him and the entertainment value was raised several notches by watching his father, Brent, hustle into a 2nd place finish from his 7th starting spot.
Much of the 30 lap event on Friday featured wonderful racing among Roger Crockett, Bud Kaeding, Dennis Moore Jr., Sean Becker, and Brent Kaeding as they tussled for spots on the podium behind the fleet T. Kaeding. Often running as a pack and trading positions numerous times, it was Brent Kaeding who prevailed for the first spot behind the winner with the last podium assignment going to Moore. Bud was 4th so it was almost a Kaeding family reunion during Troy Hennig’s on track interviews following the contest.
Saturday had all cars back plus 3 more for a 47 total and a dramatically faster track for qualifying. Jason York marked himself as someone to watch in 2004 with a quick time of 12.203 as the quicker times were spread throughout the order, a much fairer track than the first night. Jayme Barnes was 2nd quick in the ride that Wilskey had run the first night, Brent Kaeding was 3rd fast, and Tim Kaeding was 4th quick, assigning these four to the outside row three starting spot in another set of invert six, take four heats.
Roger Crockett hopes to travel more in 2004
As every driver in the tough outside row 3 starting spot as well as every car that started inside row two included not making a top four, the heats moved the 8 in the “middle” of the 16 fastest to the main. The top four from qualifying all made their needed B main transfer and with six moving on to the A main total, all four got their times back for the 40 lap lineup.
I would hazard a guess that a sizeable percentage of the crowd could not have named the driver of the 35M car as the evening began with hot laps. By 10:45 pm, everyone knew the driver is Willie Croft and were all cheering enthusiastically after his exciting win, leading all 40 laps of the Mini Gold Cup finale. This one had much more drama than the night before as the script writers saved the best for last in the 2004 Mini. Croft has been fast before, nearly winning a Golden State Challenge main at Antioch last year before claiming a 2nd, running a 360, I believe, versus the 410 teams. It seemed only a matter of time before he put one together, but to do it with the qualify laden field on the 2nd night of the Mini Gold Cup had to catch most of us off guard.
Croft’s team ranks among the lower echelon of the funding rankings and when the 10th quick, 3rd in the heat, six inversion numbers were fed into the Silver Dollar Univac computer, the A main lineup had a front row of Croft and John Gray. Croft led every lap, apparently not being bothers by several restarts, and stretching his slim lead the last few laps enough to remove a little pressure. Behind him, things were very entertaining.
Kevin Pylant, Jason Statler, Moore Jr, and a pair of Kaedings made for excellent competition as they all chased Croft to his huge $6,000 win. Starting 10th, T. Kaeding got going mid-race and moved into 4th on lap 22 after heavy side contact with Mike Henry in turn 4 as T. Kaeding drove under the two time Civil War champion. He then raced with Statler for 2nd, taking the runnerup spot at the white flag, but Statler regained the 2nd place honor out of turn four on the last lap. T. Kaeding was 3rd, Pylant 4th, and Brent Kaeding wound up 5th.
The Golden State Challenge teams now head for Hanford for the 20th when the nonwing Sprint Bandits open their season alongside the winged 410 travelers at the Kings Speedway 3/8 facility. Andy Forsberg will run both divisions for a busy evening and a new point chaser from way up north has committed to running the Sprint Bandits this year. Jim Richardson will be a regular long tow for the nonwing series, stating he so much enjoyed his Bandit appearance last year that this is his direction for 2004, running some Civil War shows also.
Korey Lovell will be defending his 2003 track title in Marysville and Mike Henry will try for a third consecutive Civil War crown. Henry will not run for points at Placerville and will race some Golden State events and make some trips to Hanford. Roger Crockett will not run the entire Northern Sprint Tour schedule after having owned that title the last couple of years. Crockett hopes to travel more this year and the team has a newly purchased hauler to assist in that plan. Someone who will do a lot of miles on highway 99 is Blake Robertson who will run the Friday points series in Chico, defending his track crown from last season.
More graduates of the indoor go kart series at Red Bluff have entered the sprint car world as the karts have a history being a stepping stone to success at Chico. Roger Crockett, Destiney Hays, and Sean Becker are examples of young talent to come out of the indoor races and Daniel Becker will be making his sprint car debut soon. Red Bluff had their awards ceremony on the afternoon of the Mini Gold Cup’s 2nd day and one driver filled his parents’ truck with hardware.
Kyle Larson's trophy collection from one banquet
Collecting four awards at one time, Elk Grove racer, Kyle Larson, had a huge day at the go kart gathering. Larson was the 125 cc champion, which awarded him a large trophy and a custom embroidered jacket. He was named the rookie of the year in the 125 cc division at Red Bluff and 4th in points in the QRC tour. But the largest piece of hardware and the one that came as a complete surprise was the six foot tall trophy for being named Driver Of The Year for the Red Bluff winter indoor series.
The Larson family races almost every weekend throughout the year between Red Bluff, Lakeport, and Chico for indoor racing in the winter and Cycleland in the summer. Perhaps in a few years a Mini Gold Cup trophy will be added to Kyle’s collection