THANK YOU to the great
HOT Speedway fans and to the 30 Sprint
Car Bandits teams that supported the series
opener on Friday night, March 22nd under
beautiful, dry weather conditions.
A stout and loaded field of top-flight sprint
car teams assembled for three 10-car, 10-
lap heat races that had lots of passing an
excitement with the “no more cones” rules of
the Sprint Car Bandits.
Late arrival Jeb Sessums (it’s Friday night
and hard for the working racers of the series
to all get there early) would become the high
points driver and pole sitter for the feature
after earning every single point he garnered
from his 10h place heat race starting
position. Jeb would claw his way through the
field finishing second to Channin Tankersley.
The Sprint Car Bandits do not redraw for
feature race starting position, as these guys
earn every point they get in their heats, and
they’ve all earned their starting spots.
And history has shown, a front row starting
position in the Sprint Car Bandits series
rarely leads to a win.
Such was the case in this particular feature
race.
The feature race fired off with a wide, slick
racing surface that allowed two and three
wide racing all around the 1/4 mile banked
dirt oval.
The battle up front was literally up for grabs
with four drivers contending for the lead –
with no apparent driver having an
advantage.
About 5 laps in the track quickly began to
transition and you could clearly see a wide
swath of rubber was being laid down on the
track, which lead to dizzying lap speeds in
the 12-second bracket.
The developing ‘skid-flippy’ track conditions
then led to highly unpredictable reactions of
the cars. The speeds were so high that
when a driver would catch a quickly
narrowing patch of ‘dry slick’ conditions, it
would really upset their car leading to
extreme snowplow or loose conditions.
Such was the case with a incredibly quick
Channin Tankersley. After a short yellow
and tires cooling off a tick, the race resumed
with a torrid battle up front, then disaster
struck.
When the field entered the apex of corners
one and two, without any prior notice,
suddenly Channin’s car lost all traction and
snap-spun directly in front of 14 more hard
charging sprint cars.
Instantaneous evasive action was taken by
several drivers to miss the ensuing fracas,
and Michael Day had the front row seat to
the situation, and he somehow jolted the car
out of the path of Channin without touching
him, only to find the concrete wall right in his
immediate future.
Day would pound the concrete hard with the
bulk of the impact being absorbed by the
chassis, however it left him with a bell-ringer.
As a precaution, Michael was taken to the
hospital, where was checked out and
everything came back good. Michael
commented that he’s going to be sore for a
few days, but he feels everything will be ok.
So, we’re all thankful to hear that news. Prior
to the incident, Michael was blazing through
the field from his 20th place starting position
and had commented what a rocket ship his
car was.
After the incident, the race resumed with the
skid-flippy conditions prevailing, continuing
the wild and unpredictable car reactions
(see video from Don Cook https://www.
youtube.com/watch?v=_aYPiD1woB0 ).
Third place Marcus Thomas would make a
power move around pole setter Jeb
Sessums and would lead the final round of
laps, and picking up his first-ever Sprint Car
Bandits series win!
Remarkably, it was less than a year ago
when Marcus would receive what could have
been a career ending injury at a sprint event
in Louisiana; but after a long recovery
period, this win marked an exclamation point
on his recovery, that being, Marcus Thomas
is BACK!
An emotional Marcus Thomas reflected in
victory lane about his long road to recovery
and how much it meant for him to be
standing in victory lane once again.
Wow, what a night!
Several drivers advanced a multitude of
positions in the feature event, including 3rd
place finisher Chad Wilson who started in
13th. Other big movers in the feature
included 19th place starter Justin Fifield who
came home in 5th, and Josh Hawkins
finishing in 7th after taking the green from
his 18th place starting spot.
Please enjoy the swath of pictures from the
evening, which started out with a
spectacularly popular pre-race SCB Fan
Fest. Throngs of fans got to the track an
hour early just to take part in it, and the line
at the SCB t-shirt stand was solid the
duration of the event. Thanks again to the
teams and fans for making the time for this
interactive pre-race event to take place. We
will have the SCB Fan Fest at every event
on the 2019 DARE TO BE DIFFERENT Tour.
And a special thanks to Fred Summers at
FixYourGenerator.com for putting up $200
in the Cash ‘Fix’ Bonus held during the
drivers meeting. Attached to this post is a
picture of the winners, along with Fred
Summers and flagman Kevin Fry.
NEXT UP for the series will be next Saturday,
March 30th at the ¼ mile dirt oval of
Kennedale Speedway Park in Kennedale,
Texas. Last year, a huge crowd came to
witness the first-ever SCB tour stop and
local favorite Jeb Sessums earned his first-
ever SCB feature win.
DON’T MISS our pre-race Fan Fest at KSP,
which is set for 5:30pm-6pm, with racing
starting early, at 7pm.