July 2001 - Inside Line Column - by Floyd Busby

The thirteenth BCRA midget race brought the schedule through the end of June in a season of contradictory facts. There is nothing contradictory about BCRA's midget lite season, having finished ten events with outstanding car counts and racing.

The midgets continue to grasp with lower-than-anticipated car counts, both on dirt and pavement, contradicted with some of the best racing, bar none!

Some of the crowd-pleasing main events have had the crowds standing at the finish. The promoters at these venues are highly enthused with the great competition, but naturally would like to see a few more cars and drivers.

Two midget drivers who have been on a tear are Chuck Gurney Jr. and Shain Matthews.

Gurney, already a seasoned veteran at age 18, has scored three feature wins aboard the Baraldi Brayton Ford/Stewart on pavement. The calamity that the youngster finds himself in is the lack of a dirt ride. Currently second in points while running only on pavement would indicate that he would be giving current point leader Floyd Alvis fits if he were to run both surfaces. Its a shame that the very talented Gurney cannot come up with a dirt ride.

Matthews has startled many an onlooker. Formerly BCRA's "emancipated 14 and 15-year-old, Shain reached his 16th birthday three days before he won at Stockton on June 16, a follow-up to his victory at Eureka. He has matured greatly and has proven himself under fire. Still a bit rough around the edges, Matthews can certainly be counted upon to be among the favorites. Had he not missed Anderson in favor of the Portland USAC show, he would probably be ahead of Gurney in second in the current standings.

He will unfortunately miss at least one more BCRA show when he runs with USAC 
in the Midwest.

In the midget lite ranks Greg Dennett is emerging as the man to beat with four feature wins under his belt and the series point lead. Veteran Terry Bergstrom took a long overdue win at Antioch and Jeff Parady won his first feature at Placerville on June 23.

The midgets made their first appearance at the Twin Cities Speedway in Marysville in five years. Again, the car count was subpar, but the racing was great and saw former 600 champion Jim Christian take his first BCRA midget win. The downer was the announcement by car owner Bill Montgomery that he would be garaging his Fontana/Stealth dirt car for at least the remainder of the season. Montgomery and his driver Scott Clark have been the victim of a number of crashes, both in BCRA and USAC, none of which were the drivers fault. At Marysville the combo again got caught up in a melee and flipped. Clark, who did not have a pavement ride, now is without any ride at all. Another excellent driving talent looking for a ride!

At Santa Maria during the co-sanctioned BCRA/USAC outing, Floyd Alvis darted high to miss slowing cars during the first lap of the main event, resulting in catching a rut and flipping his Interstate Batteries Gaerte/Stealth to record the last place finish. 

Floyd's only concern was, "Do I get points for starting?" Naturally he did. His concern is his BCRA midget point lead. With four championships to his credit, he has been trying for number five for some time now, missing with close seconds several times. Floyd hopes that this will be his year and his consistency looks very promising to bring him number-five. The championship would tie him with BCRA's premier standout Johnny Baldwin. Baldwin also had four indoor championships to his credit. At this writing Alvis is 183 points ahead of second.

At Lakeport Gurney took his first win of the season in an exciting race. The next evening at Ukiah he was lined up on the outside of the second row. In front of him was Matthews. After pushoff Matthews felt something wrong and pulled into the pits. It 
was a broken right rear wheel. Quick replacement put him back on track, but he had to start from the rear, putting Gurney into the front row. Well, that about cemented the outcome and Gurney went on to dominate the race for his second win in two consecutive meetings. 

Matthews, meanwhile, had to fight a badly pushing car. The right rear wheel and tire that had been hastily put on was a left rear and he had absolutely no stagger!

BCRA's two youngsters, Gurney and Matthews, fought it out the following week at the Stockton "99" Speedway. Matthews took the lead, but Gurney had other thoughts. At one point, Gurney got under Matthews and crossed the line in the lead. Gurney's thoughts of three-in-a-row wins was quickly diminished when Matthews simply out drove him high into the first turn and regained the advantage. This race was perhaps the point where Matthews noticeably became one of the top contenders, even though he had run an excellent race to win Eureka earlier in May.

At the Shasta Speedway in Anderson it became apparent that the name "move over flag" is not proper for the blue and orange banner. Some drivers do not fully understand the moveover flags intent, and, instead of holding their line because of faster cars about to overtake them, actually move over. This situation perhaps cost Floyd Alvis the win on the fast 3/8-mile paved oval. At the finish as the crowd stood in anticipation of a close finish, Alvis moved high to pass a car he was about to lap as second-running Chuck Gurney Jr. opted to dive below the second car they were about to lap. Alvis had to quickly back off the throttle as the flagged car moved in front of him and Gurney scooted to a 0.138 victory. The four cars were separated by a mere 0.185-seconds at the line for one of the season's most thrilling finishes.

I was taken back in time at Marysville and was reminded of Jack Carmody. Most readers of this column probably are not familiar with Carmody. He was considered the "Dean of Race Announcers" by many, having announced auto racing from the late 1920's until his passing some years ago. He announced the first post WWII BCRA midget race and continued until he left us.

I was reminded of Carmody because of Marysville's ace announcer Ron Albright. Albright carries on the Carmody tradition of covering the pit area prior to racing. He interviews drivers and car owners of guest organizations such as BCRA, taking notes of car sponsors, and other pertinent information. Albright isn't the only announcer left that does his job thoroughly, but he is one of the few who does it so well that the audience is given information that otherwise would not be forthcoming. The mark of a pro!