As the laps clicked off during Saturday night's Bandit Sprint feature at Santa Maria Speedway, it became apparent that the driver willing to take the biggest gamble in the push to the front would be rewarded with victory.

The riskiest move of the night was made by Santa Maria native Danny Sheridan, and it paid dividends in the form of a 30-lap victory over rivals Peter Murphy and Albert Pombo.

“It's nice to come back home when we've got a weekend off,” said Sheridan, a top runner in the USAC/CRA Sprints. “I tell you, the competition now is much tougher now than when I was running it before.”

In the night's other action, Sunland's Kenny Wiley concluded a thrilling NMRA TQ Midget feature by winning by less than five feet, Nipomo's Justin Marsh extended his early lead in the Mini Stock class with his second straight victory, and Carpinteria's Theo Van De Sande scored his second straight Factory Stock main event, this time a non-points race.

The risk needed to claim victory in the Bandit Sprint feature came because the 1/3-mile clay oval's surface had slicked over during the night's racing, reducing traction for the high-powered open-wheelers. The only true spot of traction sat along the cushion near the wall in both turns, meaning that the early action was largely of the follow-the-leader variety, but of an exciting nature.

The opening salvo was fired on lap 12 by Easton's Pombo, who dove on the low side to try to get past early leader Greg Bragg of Visalia. Pombo's move didn't work, but it gave Sheridan and Murphy the knowledge that a move low could work.

Despite the gamble not paying off, Pombo was able to hold off the pressure of Murphy and Sheridan for the next few laps and stayed in second.

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Sheridan made a similar move on lap 22, diving below Pombo - who later passed Bragg on lap 16 - and trying a bottom-end line around the entire track. That allowed him to get enough momentum to make the pass on the next lap, driving away from Pombo on the back straight on lap 23.

“Man Š Pombo, Murphy, (Bragg) Š once we got into lapped traffic we were beating on each other,” Sheridan said. “It was good, clean, hard racing, where no one gave each other an inch.”

Murphy was able to get past Pombo for second with a lap-26 slide job in turn three, then set off in a vain attempt to track down Sheridan up front.

“I don't think I've had that much fun since I was a little kid,” said Murphy, an Australian expatriate now based in Clovis. “From where I was sitting, I couldn't figure out who was going to win it for a long time.”

The wall-riding cost a couple of drivers, including San Martin's Wes Gutierrez and Visalia's Jace VanderWeerd, top-five finishes; VanderWeerd's brother Richard took fourth, followed by Bakersfield's Rusty Carlile.

Wiley never trailed in the 25-lap NMRA feature, storming away from pole and leading from flag to flag. However, Camarillo's Bruce Hiroshima and Chuck West of Clovis were able to run Wiley down on the final lap. Hiroshima crossed the line a half-length behind Wiley, with West a half-length behind Hiroshima.

“I was trying to complete a sweep here tonight, but I wasn't even close,” said Wiley, talking about taking the top spot in qualifying and his heat race, along with the main event. “This is close, so I'll take it.”

While Wiley built big early leads on the rest of the 11-car field, the rest of the contenders were locked in a wheel-to-wheel battle for second, split five different ways. Hiroshima and West eventually broke free from the rest and set off in pursuit of the leader.

West caught Wiley going into turn one on the final lap, but spent most of the lap trying to work his way past the leader. The final turn set up the entire finish, with Wiley taking the high route around turn four, Hiroshima going low and West in the middle.

Hiroshima was able to sneak past West at the line, but fell just short of scoring the victory.

“I feel like I caught the fish, but I just couldn't bring him into the boat,” said West of the victory.

Camarillo's Richard Ortega Jr. and Scott Dobson of Newbury Park, both involved in the early battles, rounded out the top five.

Marsh made it 2-for-2 on the young season in an impressive manner, ducking low to avoid a possible three-car pileup involving early-race leaders Mike Weigel, Justin Crockett and Jeremy Heroux.

When Lompoc's Weigel got loose coming out of turn four on lap 10, it bunched up the front-runners; Crockett got into the side of Weigel and pushed both cars high, holding up Heroux in third and allowing Marsh to duck underneath and jump from fourth to first.

Weigel fell back, allowing Crockett and Heroux to chase after the now-leading Marsh over the final 10 laps, with Heroux ducking past Crockett for second on lap 19.

Frank Nyback trailed Marsh, Heroux and Crockett to the line, while rookie Walker Irwin scored a fifth-place finish.

The Factory Stock class took the place of the California Lightning Sprints on the race card, due to scheduling conflicts with the Lightning class. Because of the late change, only 13 regulars showed up for the race, but all were front-running cars.

Van De Sande got past Santa Maria's Dave Thompson on lap 18 of the 20-lap, then raced Thompson door-to-door over the final two laps, finally pulling ahead with a half-lap remaining.

Kirk Morgan took third, right off Thompson's bumper, followed by Glen Sparks and Mike Frazier.

Before the night's racing got underway, the Factory Stocks were given an opportunity to try and break the eight-year-old lap record set by “Cowboy” Chris Garris during an open-comp show late in the 2000 season. Five of the 13 drivers on hand broke Garris' old mark of 19.380 seconds, with Pete Lethcoe topping the list with an 18.846.

May 4, 2008