Saturday night was a roller-coaster ride for Visalia's Jesse Mack at Santa Maria Speedway.

For the first few laps of the Bandit Sprint feature on the 1/3-mile clay oval, the division point leader looked like he would cruise to another victory, only to have a mechanical issue nearly bring his night to a halt - literally.

However, that gremlin righted itself quickly, and Mack was able to chase down Easton's Albert Pombo to score the 25-lap feature, his sixth victory of the season.

In the night's other action, Nipomo's Kenny Kirkpatrick played the waiting game to perfection in claiming the win in the IMCA Modifieds, Atascadero's Tom Grzincic held together to score his second Street Stock feature of the season, and Doyle Graham Jr. of Arroyo Grande took the checkered flag for the second time this year in the Factory Stocks.

Mack started the 10-car feature on the outside of the front row and stormed out to the early lead. However, his night would get tougher when a front brake locked up after hitting a run in the south turn, slowing his car enough to give up three places in the running order and hand the lead to Pombo.

“I was almost ready to pull the car in after that,” Mack said in a Victory Lane interview. “I decided that I'd try one more lap to see if it would release. I didn't know if I had brakes or not for a couple of laps.”

Fortune was on Mack's side, though, and he was able to get going again, chasing down Pombo - cousin of former Bandit champ Davey Pombo - in earnest. He was able to get back up to Pombo by lap 13, then waited for the next eight laps to try and make his move.

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That move finally came when Mack, riding his customary ultra-high line in the turns, got a great push out of turn two on lap 21, vaulting him down the back straight faster than Pombo. The extra momentum, used by Mack on the low sides of turn three and four, allowed him to move past Pombo and take the lead with only four laps to go.

“When I'm running second, what I try to do is try a line that the leader isn't running,” Mack said. “I was getting a little higher up in the corners, and that allowed me to reel him in.”

Pombo finished a solid seconds, just behind Mack at the finish line, while four-time former SMS champ Jimmy Thompson got the better of Atascadero's Greg Porte - himself a former SMS title-winner - in a duel for third. Joey Layman, also of Atascadero, finished a lap down in fifth.

The Nipomo-based Kirkpatrick spent much of the 25-lap IMCA Modified feature glued to the rear bumper of Santa Maria driver Josh Vogt, who leapt off the front row at the start to take the lead for much of the race.

“I was just trying to watch the line I was using, just trying to be smooth and see where (Vogt) was going,” Kirkpatrick said. “The ruts were tearing us up pretty bad.”

Kirkpatrick's patience paid off on lap 21 when Vogt - whom had driven the ideal race for a leading car up to that point - hit a rut in turn one and got sideways a bit. That was just enough to allow Kirkpatrick to pull ahead on the low side, pulling into the lead going down the back straight.

“I'd hit that rut about 15 times before he did,” Kirkpatrick said of the hole that tripped up Vogt. “It's just one of those (racing) deals.”

Chad Weber got past Vogt soon after Kirkpatrick's move and took second, while Vogt tangled with Coalinga's Rich Denman in the battle for third. Vogt took the spot, with Denman settling for fourth. David Addamo rounded out the top five.

Grzincic looked to have things well in hand during the 20-lap Street Stock feature, but to the Atascadero driver, the race was anything but placid.

“It was hardly a Sunday drive. I was worried that the car wouldn't make it,” said Grzincic. “The fuel pump was going out, and the car was sputtering pretty much around the entire track.”

Grzincic did his best to make things look easy, pulling away from the start and during both restarts into comfortable leads, never receiving much of a challenge from runner-up Kyle Heckman of Nipomo.

Santa Maria's Chad Shaffer took third after being hounded by fourth-place finisher Tom Breshears for much of the race, with Cole Milton taking fifth.

It looked like Graham had taken the lead from Nipomo's Tim Correia on lap 16 of the 20-lap Factory Stock main, only to have the move wiped out due to a caution flag. That reversal was only temporary, however, as Graham, in a move similar to Mack's winning move, drove around the high side on Correia on the restart to take the victory.

“The track was fast, had a lot of bite in it,” Graham said. “But, it was very rough, so you had to find that line up high, and hope that anyone that tried to go underneath would just bounce around.”

Correia held on to finish second, while Kirk Morgan got past point leader Tom Renner for third; Michael Frazier rounded out the top five.

During the break in between the heat races and features, the track held the inaugural Media Challenge, originally featuring members of the television and radio media from the Central Coast.

Andrew Luria of KCOY/KKFX TV scored the 10-lap victory over ESPN Radio 1280 host C.J. Silas, with Luria overcoming an early flat tire to take “Wild Bill” Jewell's No. 04 Ford to victory over Silas, driving Ken Kehs' No. 00 Toyota Celica.

“Miss Devious,” a late replacement from the Central Coast Roller Derby after local DJs Adam Montiel and Jeremy West were scratched from the race, lost a big lead when she flipped Frank Nyback's No. 5 Ford Pinto on the back straight.

August 26, 2007