PERRIS, CA

Moving and grooving, he had no time for losing: Jim Wood (47, above), a perennial front-runner in the Southern California Flat Track Association series, ran monthly at Perris Raceway on a splendid evening for racing. The SCFTA is still hard at work on the new track that is coming closer to completion as you read this; patience is virtue - it will be worth the wait. Now let's race!

Wood nailed the bull's-eye in the Senior Vet Over 50 and Two-Stroke Vintage Expert contests. With the drop of the green flag, the pack blew off the chalk in the Senior Vet Over 50 clash, and Wood had the lead. A lively Jim Ottele (58Y) was running second, dragging scrappy Wes Powell along in his slipstream. With clean air, Wood was setting the pace. Powell repositioned himself into second, with Craig Johnson now third while Ottele, succumbing to the pressure, was now in fourth. Keeping the rubber to the road, Wood stayed true for the win, followed by Powell, Johnson, Ottele and Elliott Iverson (54).

Momentum is a good thing, and Wood had plenty of it on the rev-up for the Two-Stroke Expert contest, but Joe Steffen and Bruce Reynolds wanted to pop that bubble. The three dirt-track gunners were going at it, and it appeared that Reynolds would take the box top with an early two-tick split over the scrapping Wood and Steffen. Wood poured it on near the halfway mark of the eight-lap event, going under Reynolds on a turn late in the race for the lead and, eventually, the win. Reynolds was second and Steffen third.

Corey Bauman took the early Open Novice lead, followed by Andrew Kessinger and the sole Bomber-class contestant in this inter-class main, Daniel Stinson, running third. Kessinger took the point position by lap three, now followed by Stinson and Bauman. Kessinger and Stinson tore away from the pack, and the fight was on! Mirroring Kessinger's pace, Stinson upped the ante as the white flag neared, looking for an inside pass. On lap seven, Stinson pulled through and stuck an inside pass on Kessinger. As the white flag fluttered, Kessinger was on top of Stinson. Blasting into turn four, Stinson plugged the inside on Kessinger and then swung wide, closing the door at the finish and taking the race win, ahead of Kessinger in second and Bauman in third.

Stinson held the point for the entire Vintage 250 Two-Stroke race until the last lap, when he ran out of gas and gift-wrapped the win for Rick Logan.

Fontana Radiator's Jeff Johnson bored his way to the holeshot in the Pro main, as his chief nemesis, Ian Foulds, was mired in traffic. FSD Racing/Southland Racing/Richards Racing's Foulds broke through the crowd, but it was too little, too late, and Johnson took the win, with a blazing Foulds second and David Bush third.

Please go to www.southerncaliforniaflattrack.com for more information on this ongoing series.

Results

YTH (0-16): 1. Emmy Bush.

OPEN NOV: 1. Andrew Kessinger; 2. Corey Bauman; 3. Nick Gil; 4. Mike Diego; 5. Marc Pape.

OPEN AM: 1. James Mann; 2. David Reinhard; 3. John Perez; 4. Lew Gleason; 5. Harly Legowski.

4-STRK: 1. Daniel Iha; 2. Mark Cernicky; 3. Billy Katkov.

PRO: 1. Jeff Johnson; 2. Ian Foulds; 3. David Bush; 4. Wes Powell; 5. Mark Cernicky.

VET 35+: 1. Paul Herman; 2. Marc Pape.

SR VET 50+: 1. Jim Wood; 2. Wes Powell; 3. Craig Johnson; 4. Jim Ottele; 5. Elliott Iverson.

SR NOV: 1. Corey Bauman.

S/SR: 1. Dennis Kanegae; 2. David Molitor; 3. Mel Stoner.

CLSC VINT: 1. Lenny Rodriguez; 2. James Kohls; 4. Joe Pape.

2-STRK VINT 250 NOV: 1. Rick Logan; 2. Carl Whitt; 3. Monte Roberts; 4. Nick Armstrong; 5. Dwight Rundle.

2-STRK VINT 250 EX: 1. Jim Wood; 2. Bruce Reynolds; 3. Joe Steffen.

BMBR: 1. Daniel Stinson.