Ken Maely's Ranch
Corona, California

Winter Series - Round 4
December 7, 2003 - Ken Maely's Ranch
By: Trish Wells

Rain, rain go away...and it did. The forecast rain managed to stay away, or at least at a slow drizzle, enabling the 4th round of the Winter Series to progress. For those of us in Southern California, this rain thing is a bit of a novelty, but it saved anyone having to water the track. Thanks to Fred at the Racers Pub, who worked on the track all week to make a new "oval" track, with much longer straights, and a smooth, flat surface. This tacky surface made for some good, fast racing throughout the entire day.

Bobby Krips joined in the racing at the last minute, and volunteered to penalize himself on the 10-20 yard line each race. This made for some exciting catch up racing, with Tim Gomez and Steve Murray holding him off in the first round. Gomez also held Krips off in the 2nd round, but rounds 3 and 4 saw the Cowboy with a win. Rudy Lauer scored one win, 2 seconds and a third. Once again, Tim Gomez showed his true potential, and scored another perfect score, with 4 wins from 4 races...way to go Tim. This placed Gomez 1st in Division One, with Bobby Krips 2nd and Rudy Lauer 3rd. Both Dale Facchini and Michael Hernandez showed everyone that they meant business with some great racing throughout the day.

Division Two saw some equally exciting racing, but the day belonged to Tony Bracy, who showed not only can he ride that close to the wall without touching, but that he had full control at the times he needed it. 2nd place went to Doug Lupo, 3rd Rohn Zellner and 4th place, the 17 year old who is showing great promise considering the small amount of time he's been riding, Tommy Kistler. This young rider was thrown in at the deep end, but improved with each round. Its truly amazing the improvement in all the riders, young and old, since we first began this series in October.

The Junior Division saw Gino Manzares take a nasty high-side spill on turn four, which put him out for the rest of the day with a few aches and pain. Ricky Wells was penalized in the final round, which put him back to the 10 yard line. Krystal Cramer got the start, and never looked back. Cramer took the round 4 win, and took away the chance for Wells to gain a perfect score for the day. Both these kids handled the new track without a problem, and showed everyone their great riding abilities. Those two are so great to watch riding together. The Junior Division win for the day went to Ricky Wells, Krystal Cramer 2nd and Gino Manzares 3rd.

Once again, the PW50 racing was really entertaining. Nick Schoonover started on the 50 (or so) yard line, and did a great job of catching up, and passing Braydan Galvin twice. Galvin wasn't about to hand the winner trophy to Schoonover, and managed to hold Schoonover off for two races to take the win. This put the two youngster in a tied situation, which lead to a run off for the covenanted 1st place trophy. Once again, with full race faces on, these two battled it out, with Galvin holding onto the lead the entire race, to take the 1st place trophy for the day. Nick Schoonover settled for 2nd today, but next round will be any ones race. These two riders are getting faster and faster with each race.
It was great to see a large crowd out there watching all the races, and none seemed overly bothered with the un-California like weather. Next round at Maely's will be held on Sunday December 28, starting at 11am. Maely's is open every Saturday and Sunday from 9am to 5pm. The Winchester track will be running Saturday December 20....so we all have a week off.

Thanks again to Fred from the racers pub, Dave Delbridge (the ref), Joe Jones (the starter) and all the other helpers...we couldn't do it without you.