October 2005 - Inside Line Column - by Floyd Busby

SEASON ENDS WITH GRAND FINALE CANCELLATION

The checkered flag came out one race too soon for many in the BCRA midget ranks. The season finale 3rd Annual Johnny Baldwin Classic, scheduled for October 8 at the Santa Maria Speedway, was abruptly cancelled by the track. The BCRA midget membership was not made aware of this until September 24 at the Shasta Raceway Park event. BCRA first learned of the cancellation when one of the midget lite board members called with a question about the lite portion of the Baldwin Classic and was told that it had been cancelled. That was on Thursday prior to the Shasta event and too late to cancel paid advertising in print and web media.
The cancellation was a blow to the 'ol organization, as the Baldwin Classic was becoming BCRA's "signature" event. Entry forms were distributed beyond the BCRA ranks and it was lining up to be an outstanding event with quite a few non-BCRA entries, as it had been in 2004 before a rainout.
Emotions ran the gamut: disbelief, frustration, and certainly anger. But, it is now water-under-the-bridge, and BCRA will regroup to ensure that in 2006 the Baldwin Classic will go forward.
The track management cancelled their final two races, the last of which was to be the Baldwin Classic. In a statement on the Santa Maria Speedway website management stated, "In a regrettable, but necessary, cost cutting move the last two races of the season are being cancelled".
With the conclusion of the season we have two new champions.
Doug Hunting added to his 2003 title with the '05 championship in the midget lite division. Doug's father, Ted, took the car owner championship. John Sarale parlayed an excellent season to take his first BCRA midget driving championship along with the car owner title.
Sarale, with three midget feature wins, won the title by 15 points over Thomas Meseraull. Meseraull had four wins up until Shasta, them made it five in the unscheduled season-closer. Missing two races to compete in Colorado and Bellvelle hurt his chances at his second consecutive title. He came into Shasta 34 points down to Sarale, but a win was not good enough to propel him to his second championship. Sarale, meanwhile, produced an exceptional season with many high finishes, abandoning the poor luck that he had incurred for several previous seasons. Also in the midget winner's column were Jimmy Christian and Michael Hubert III with two wins each and Brian Gard, Rob Russell and Ryan Kaplan with one each.
Prior to the Shasta Raceway Park finale Kaplan experience motor problems, so instead of traveling to the southland as he had planned, drove the shorter distance from Chico to compete at Shasta.
They got the engine problems resolved and the talented youngster drove to a third-place finish behind Meseraull and WMRA's Dallas Melby. The race was the final event of the four-race Pacific Northwest Midget Championship Series co-sanctioned by BCRA and WMRA.
Meseraull won three of the series features; Eureka, Meridian, ID. and Shasta. WMRA's Brian Olson won the second night at Meridian. The two organizations will undoubtedly extend the successful series to the
2006 season. At Shasta 27 cars signed in with 22 starting the feature.
The top-ten final BCRA/WMRA series points shows Meseraull with 324 followed by Sarale 288, Hubert 241, Dallas Melby (WMRA) 238, Breanna Lopez (WMRA) 219, Rob Lindsey 208, Pete Davis 193, Brian Olson (WMRA) 191 and Skeeter Flake (WMRA) 184. A total of 44 cars and drivers competed over the four-race series.
Congratulations to Scott Pierovich for his first feature win.
Pierovich opted to run the show down south and won over a ten-car starting field. On several occasions he came close to winning a BCRA feature - perhaps in '06!
Looking back to the Pacific Northwest Midget Championship series races at Meridian, during a conversation with nine-time (now
10-time) WMRA champion Rick Moss, we were discussing the young up-and-coming chargers. He is teamed with the bright and talented youngster Even Margeson. During the discussion Moss stated that his philosophy of helping the younger challengers came in part from a conversation he had some years ago with Hank Butcher. Butcher had said, "I don't want to race against them, I want to race with them"!
The BCRA vintage division will be holding their annual picnic on October 15. It was a very good season for the vintagers, who display and ran their classic wares at both midget and midget lite events in addition to a non-BCRA function at the All American Speedway in Roseville. Once again, the vintage division will be printing a calendar for 2006. We'll give you the info when we get the particulars.
A new full-color 2005 BCRA yearbook will be published. Last year's book was begun after the first of the year - not so this year.
It will be available shortly after the annual Awards Banquet on November 12, so will be available before Christmas. The '05 version will be about 64 pages and will pertain almost entirely of the midget division. The lites and vintage will get several pages. Because it will be published and comb-bound entirely "in-house", the price will be considerably lower than last year. The 2004 book is now on sale at $20.00 (down from $32.00). Add $3 for shipping and I'll pay the tax.
Order from: Buzco Enterprises, 1114 Lovell Ct., Concord, CA 94520.
The midget lite division is losing one of its fine competitors and board member Drew Barney. The Barney clan is moving to Oregon. Drew's very sharp lite is for sale.
BCRA is assembling a committee to test several mufflers in order to come up with "approved" models. Quieting the racing engines is so very important as many tracks and all state and county facilities have a decibel limit.
The midget lite's first "Speedweek" was a success. First Placerville and the Tracy Taylor Memorial on Sept. 3, won by Scott Kinney, then on Wednesday night at the Silver Dollar Speedway in Chico as a precursor to the World of Outlaws with Doug Hunting taking the win. The final series event and last race of the season, Sept.
10, with Hunting again taking the win.
This season separate points were kept in the midget division for dirt and pavement. It has no bearing on the overall championship, but the winners of each category will receive a trophy at the banquet. In the pavement points Meseraull and car owner Bill Ferrari took top honors, Sarale was second on both counts and Eric Mostin placed third as driver and owner. Doing it in the dirt, it was Sarale in both the driver and owner category. Second was Meseraull/Ferrari and third Joe Lindsey, owner and driver.