JOANIDES SCORES AGAIN IN LATE MODEL ACTION AT IRWINDALE

Source: David Grayson
Date: 07/21/2008

One has to believe that Nick Joanides truly loves the Toyota Speedway at Irwindale simply because he's having a fabulous season racing on the fastest half mile oval in the west. Joanides scored another feature win, July 19th, in the Auto Club Late Model division. It was the Woodland Hills-California driver's third series win of 2008 and second consecutive win. All of that is on top of seven feature wins in the AC Delco Super Late Model division at the southern California track.

Travis Irving led the 22 starters under the initial green flag and led the first lap before Joanides made what would turn out to be the winning move of the race. He went on to lead the remaining 39 laps and crossed under the checkers 1.564 seconds ahead of Tim Huddleston. Irving was third while Mike Johnson and Beau Debard completed the top five. The race only had one yellow flag on lap 20 when a spin out triggered a four car accident in turn two.

After parking his J&M Construction Chevrolet into victory lane a very happy Joanides said "it was a very good points night for us. I was told that (series points leader) Andrew Myers got sixth tonight and I take it that this will get us caught up and we're now dead even at the top of the points. That should make for a fun championship run for the rest of the year. In all honesty it's about who starts on the front row. If Tim, (Huddleston), would have started up front he would have won tonight. This is a highly competitive class."

Also a big part of this evening at the Toyota Speedway at Irwindale were the King Taco Super Trucks.In their 40 lap feature race Poway-California's Joe Herold made his winning move midway through lap three and led the remainder of the race to earn his second feature win of the season. Connor Cantrell ran a very close second and was only 0.392 seconds behind the leader. Mason Britton, series points leader Pat Mintey Jr and Paul Brennan completed the top five.

The only yellow flag in this event came on lap three when a spin out in turn two triggered a light accident that involved three other Super Trucks. But the absolute highlight of this event was the intense side by side duel between Mason Britton and Conner Cantrell for second. This two trucks got alongside of each other on lap 20 and raced, off and on, door to door all the way to the white flag lap before Cantrell was able to clear his rival and take the runner up position.

After parking his Quality Chevrolet Super Truck in victory lane, Herold said "It turned out to be pretty good tonight. I felt like it might be a little trouble at the front because of the pre race inversion of ten. So we just hung on to the bottom and it all worked out."

The BG Products Pure Street Stocks ran a 30 lap feature on the speedway's one third mile oval configuration. Chatsworth-California's Mike Colato Jr took command of the race for good on lap four to score his third feature win of 2008. He drove under the checkers with a 1.3 second lead over series points leader Chad Kelly. Tommy Agosta, Justin Good and David Foster completed the top five. The 30 lap feature was slowed twice due to caution flags. The first, one the second lap, was a three car spin in heavy traffic in the middle of turn one. The second yellow was for a lap 19 single car spin in turn one that allowed Kelly one more shot at the race leader. But on the ensuing restart Colato made it clear that he had a different idea.

After parking his car, sponsored by Central Valley Auto Body, in victory lane Colato noted "there's an old saying that goes sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. During our trophy dash the car felt like a lead balloon. My crew worked their butts off to get this car together. Don't ask me how we did it but I'll take it."

The evening concluded with an all American demolition derby The smash and dash for cash was won by Signal Hill-California's Dan Pachella who outlasted the effort of Orange driver David Smith.

Racing returns to the Toyota Speedway at Irwindale next Saturday night, July 26th. It's Auto Club of Southern California Night at the speedway and club card holders will be admitted free. The fans will be treated to action from the Auto Club Late Models and the AC Delco Super Late Models who will be running twin main events. There will also be racing action from the Vista Paint Super Stocks, the Justice Brothers Mini Stocks and the Legends.

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