4.27.19 Sprint Bandits Results

Petty, TX (4/28/19) by DarinShort.com. With his twin sister
and mom cheering him on in the stands (and his dad
turning the wrenches on the car), 18-year old Casey
Burkham chased down race leader and ‘Stepdad’ (as
Casey’s crew affectionately nicknames him) ‘Wild Willy’
Eggimann in lapped traffic to take the lead, and eventual
$2,000 win, at the Sprint Car Bandits series event held at
the beautiful 82 Speedway in Petty, Texas on Saturday
night April 27th.

Equally as beautiful was the weather for the event, with
temps hovering around the 80° all night long.

The night started off with three www.KoolTrikes.com heat
races, that went G-W-C…yet, just before anyone could
comment on how smooth and fast they were ran, Austin
Mundie’s sizzling fast #4 sprinter would go flipping down
the end of the backstretch into corner #3 after his throttle
stuck.

Following the hair-raising incident, Austin would emerge
unscathed to the roar of the crowd, and the crew would go
to frenetic-paced work pit-side to attempt to get the car
reassembled back together in time to make the feature.

And with the assistance of a team of pit warriors, they
would, as he would join the other 21 A-feature cars just in
the nick of time, to start in 14th.

It would prove to be worth their efforts with Austin’s stellar
drive in the feature event. More on that in a bit.

After a fan-thrilling 4-wide parade lap paced by Randy
Butler’s (yes, the retired Wisconsin sprint car driver) www.
KoolTrikes.com Corvette pace car, assuming high points
driver (after pole sitter Dalton Stevens car would suddenly
drop out coming down to the green) Will ‘Wild Willy’
Eggimann (transplanted veteran sprint car driver from
Jackson, MN via the East Coast) would take immediate
command of the feature race.

Then a sequence of relatively bizarre events would occur.

The caution would come out for a spun-out car, and upon
realigning the cars, it was found that the transponders of
two of the cars somehow got crossed up in the track
scoring system, forcing several laps of caution while
scorers got it straightened out.

And in the meantime, the track surface threw all the drivers
a major curve ball, as all the recent rains and trapped
moisture just below the surface would continue to rise. The
net effect was many of the team’s cars would become very
tight on the fast, now sticky & slurpy surface.

Several tense moments would take place with drivers
getting up on two wheels atop the ultra-fast track, and
Chance “Mow Time” McCrary would do a soft roll-over in
turn one, and a few laps later, Junior Jenkins would suffer
the same fate at the apex of corners 1-2. Both drivers were
reported to be okay.

With the event clock now showing 20-minutes in, and only
three laps completed, during the red flag teams were
allowed to add fuel to their cars – which I believe is the first
time in series history would take place.

It was at about the same time three fast running cars would
suddenly drop out for unrelated reasons: Colby Estes,
Brad Queen and Josh Hawkins.

Eggimann would resume a blistering pace around the 1/3-
mile, high banked black pond-dirt oval, advancing through
lapped traffic cleanly. By mid-race you could see his ever-
tightening J&J Chassis car struggle to stay in the fast line
along with a glowing rear brake rotor, while Casey
Burkham would keep pressure on Eggimann in his well-
prepared Schnee Chassis #45B. A few laps later Burkham
would pounce in lap traffic to cleanly get past the #77W of
Eggimann.

Burkham’s car could not escape the suddenly wicked-fast
conditions either, as his car would tighten up more than he
would have liked, but it stayed good enough to propel him
to his first-ever Sprint Car Bandits 360C.I. feature win.

An elated Burkham in victory lane was joined by his proud
dad and crew, and he would become the 15th different
SCB series winner in the past 19 events dating back to the
start of 2018 – a real testament to the strength of the
group of drivers in the series, and its ultra-competitive
rules package.

The final 22 laps would flash by G-W-C, with lap times in
the 12-second bracket, and the event completing at 10:
56pm.

And what about Austin Mundie? Well, he would bounce
back in amazing fashion after the post-heat race incident
by driving past 11 cars in the feature to come home in the
final podium position. Hats off to Austin and crew for facing
adversity – and conquering it.

Scott Evans, Dalton Stevens and Brad Queen would win
the www.KoolTrikes.com heat race wins, and each will
collect $100 from Randy Butler next week. Randy was
wearing quite a few hats last night, between his Kool Trikes
display, our request for him to be pace driver throughout
the night, and his heat race promos. So, he will be mailing
out those awards to the winning drivers this week. Thank
you once again to Randy for teaming up with the Sprint
Car Bandits series!

Here’s the complete A-feature rundown from 82 Speedway,
on April 27th, 2019. And note that the next series event will
be held at the brand-new Buffalo Creek Speedway in
Canton Texas this coming Saturday night, May 4th. Click
www.BCS19.com for complete track details, and check out
www.SprintCarBandits.com where you’ll find the event flyer
and press release. Thanks once again to everyone that
supported the event, 82 Speedway for an awesome facility
and racing surface, and to the area fans that got a really
good taste of what is to come when the Series returns to
82 on June 15th for the $2,000/win and $300/start
‘Texoma 25.’

Sprint Car Bandits A-feature Results – 82 Speedway,
Petty, TX 4/27/19:

Casey Burkham #45B (started 3rd)
Will Eggimann #77W
Austin Mundie #4
Chad Wilson #20
Dale Wester #12W
Scott Evans #118
Claud Estes III #74E
Bryan Debrick #10
Michael Day #2
DJ Estes #74
Cody Freeman #02
Michael Merrell #33
Daniel Estes #72
Marcus Thomas #15T
Kodey Keimig #27
Junior Jenkins #23
Steve McMackin #41M
Brad Queen #55
Colby Estes #71
Josh Hawkins #80
Chance McCrary #13M
Dalton Stevens #99X