Welcome to River City Speedway, Oregon's premier 1/4 mile clay oval auto racing. Divisions include Modified, Sportsman, Street Stock, Women's and 4-Cylinder. Featured events included: Late Models, Midgets, Dwarf Cars, 4-Cylinder Late Models, Sprints, Micro Sprints and Kart Outlaws.

Track is located approximately 1 1/2 miles west of Saint Helens, Oregon. Located at Columbia County Fairgrounds.
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August 16, 2008
by Mike Weber

St. Helens drivers Stephen Kaptur and Don Grentz won their second A main wins of the season in the Lemmons Trucking sponsored stock car races Saturday at River City Speedway.

Three former Columbia County Racing Association division champions won for the first time this year as Chris Quinn, John Nusom and Stacey Fordyce all recorded main event victories. Local racers Sean Fox, Dan Fox, Justin McMullen, Gerald Strawn and Kathy Griffin notched top three A main finishes.

The sportsman and modified mains ended early by red caution flags with two wild, multi-car crashes halting the action as both races were unable to resume. Many drivers were treated by Metro West Ambulance emergency medical technicians at the track. Jeremy Martin of St. Helens, had some injuries that required him to be taken to the hospital for treatment.

In the Reser's Fine Foods Sportsman main, Tricia Brittain, Tim Williams, LeRoy White and Aaron Prettyman were involved in a four car, lap 27 mishap on the back straightaway. Gresham's John Nusom, who passed Rick Rehanek on the second lap, was in front when the crash occurred and got the win with his Tom's Auto & Performance Machine Chevrolet Camaro. Brittain of St. Helens, took sixth with her Rose Valley Market Monte Carlo and she leads the series point standings.

"Tricia took a hard hit, her head and neck is a little sore, but she's doing alright," said her husband, Sam Brittain. "That's the way things go in racing. Sometimes you're on top of the world and other times, things don't go so well. It really wasn't anyone's fault and it was just a racing incident. It's the most damage we've had to the car in a couple years. We'll fix it and be back in two weeks for the Labor Day Races (Aug. 30-31)."

Quinn of Vancouver, started on the pole position of the modified main and led all the way with his Gunderson Tire/ASK Engineering open-wheel style racer. The race ended on lap 32 with a three car crash on the back straightaway involving Martin, Rainier's Greg Greer and Dennis Blasier of Scappoose. Sean Fox maneuvered up from an eighth place start to get a season best second with his Outrageous Audio/Malar Performance Engines racer.

"I'm pretty happy, the car was working absolutely beautiful and the motor was running great, thanks to Tony Malar," said Sean Fox, whose dad Dan was right behind in third. "Our Northwest Competition Motorsports crew of Gary Knox, Steve Fenter, Dave Fenter and Doug Lafoone does an excellent job for every race. It's too bad Jeremy got hurt and I sure hate to see things like that happen."

Stephen Fenter, who was atop the street stock division prior to the race, led the first four laps of the street stock main with his Camaro. Grentz moved by Fenter on the outside lane on lap five for the lead. Grentz held onto the top spot for the duration of the 40 laps with his Yamhill Auto Wrecking/Sweers Trucking Camaro. Gresham's Curt Nusom, was runnerup in his Steven's Printing Camaro and he took over first place in the standings. Portland's Don Schott took third. Terry Moss of St. Helens, maneuvered up from the rear of the 13-car field to take fourth with his Knife River Chevy Malibu.

"This is my best year ever and I would be pretty satisfied if I can just finish in the top five of standings," said Grentz.

Kaptur moved up from eighth place to win the mini stock main with the Mary Jean's Flowers/Reliant Elevator Ford Pinto owned by Milwaukie's Eric Lindquist. Scott Beaudoin was second and McMullen, the division leader, was third.

Fordyce of Vancouver, took the lead from Griffin on lap two of the women's main and led the remainder of the race. Kyle Mahner, 16 of Clackamas, led all the way to win the Micro Sprint main. Longview's Steven Schreiner led from start-to-finish with his Dodge Neon to capture his second student division main event win.

Michigan Sweep for Edwards
RacingOne Report

BROOKLYN, Mich. - Carl Edwards held off Kyle Busch in two-lap shootout to the checkered flag and won Sunday's NASCAR Sprint Cup Series 3M Performance 400 at Michigan International Speedway to go along with his win in Saturday's Nationwide Series race.

Edwards led the final 18 laps of Sunday's race to score his fifth Sprint Cup win of the season.

It was Edwards' 12th win of his career and second at Michigan. In nine Cup races at Michigan, Edwards has finished outside the top-10 only once.

Edwards, who turned 29 on Friday, became only the second driver to win both races. Former Roush driver Mark Martin did it in 1993.

The win gave Edwards forty bonus points in the Chase for the Sprint Cup seedings and a solid hold on the second spot when the championship season begins in September.

"The key was my crew today," Edwards said. "My guys did an unbelievable job getting me off pit road.

"This is unbelievable. We're winning races. We're gearing up for the Chase. I'm feeling stronger than ever. We're here to win championships. That's what we're shooting for."

“(This was) very important,” said Bob Osborne, Edwards’ crew chief. “What we’re doing here is a little bit of practicing for the Chase and trying to get those 10 points to catch that 18 car. … Carl Edwards did a great job. The pit crew did a great job.”

Busch tried to rundown Edwards in the final dash to the checkered flag, set-up when Denny Hamlin blew his engine, but did not have enough to get passed the Office Depot Ford.

"It was a decent run for us," Busch said. "We just didn't have enough for the 99 there at the end. We weren't able to get through the corners as fast as Carl was."

“It just came down to when he beat us off of pit road,” Busch said. “That was it for us. We just didn’t quite have the car capable enough of being able to beat those guys. We were good on that one run, that one set of tires. But that was pretty much what we had.

"Carl's right there. He has been all year. Yeah, it's a 20-point swing. We've got to live with it. Hopefully, we can make it up someplace else."

David Ragan scored an impressive third place finish with Greg Biffle and Matt Kenseth rounding out the top five as Roush Fenway Racing claimed four of the first five spots.

"Just to gamble a little bit we knew at worst that we would still finish in the top five," said Ragan of a late strategy to stay on track. "It was something to take a shot. We certainly learned from it. If we had to do it all over again, we’d probably still do it again.”

Mark Martin, polesitter Brian Vickers, Kevin Harvick, Elliott Sadler and Jamie McMurray completed the first ten finishers.

It was a tough day for a trio of drivers who saw their Chase hopes take a hit including Jeff Gordon, who cut a tire after making contact with Tony Stewart and then hit the wall.

"It just looked like Tony kind of came down and there was just no room to move there because we were all so tight coming off there," said Gordon who fell from sixth to ninth in the standings with a 42nd place finish.

Kasey Kahne suffered a blown engine and finished 40th, falling to 11th in the standings.

And Hamlin had an engine expire just laps from the finish of Sunday's race. He finished 39th and dropped to the 12th and final Chase transfer spot.

The Sprint Cup Series now heads to Bristol Motor Speedway for next Saturday night's Sharpie 500.

Kinser Cruises to Dacotah Win
RacingOne Report

Steve Kinser has a remarkable record of winning at tracks he visits for the first time over the course of his career with the Advance Auto Parts World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series, dating back to the series inaugural season in 1978. He added another track to this list on Saturday night, as he picked a win in the series debut at Dacotah Speedway in Mandan, North Dakota.

The 20-time Advance Auto Parts World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series champion started on the pole and led all 30 laps of the A-Feature to pick up his sixth win of the season and the 549th of his career. The $10,000 victory was the third race of the Gerdau Ameristeel Northern Tour, which encompasses the four races in the state of North Dakota this season for the World of Outlaws. For the win, Kinser was presented a custom clock that stood over seven feet tall, which was designed and produced by Ivan Sailor of Racers Performance.

“Everything went smooth pretty smooth tonight,” said Kinser in Victory Lane. “We have been running pretty good the last two months and we are really consistent and in the Top-Five most nights.”

The largest crowd in the history of Dacotah Speedway was on hand for the World of Outlaws debut at the high-banked 3/8-mile. Fans began to arrive early in the afternoon, and the grandstands were full well before the cars took to the track for hot laps.

“It’s a great facility and a good race track,” said Kinser. “Next time they’ll know how to work on it a little more and till it up and give an even better race track.”

On the opening green, Kinser charged to a quick six-car length lead aboard the Q Oil Maxim and extended that each of the first four laps before he got into lapped traffic. He then sliced his way through the slower machines, with Craig Dollansky keeping pace and gaining some ground in the process.

Kinser had a little trouble getting around a couple of lapped cars on the 10th lap, giving Dollansky an opportunity to close right up on him. Once he cleared traffic, Kinser was able to pull away again, when the only caution of the night flew on the 12th lap for Joey Saldana who was running third and had a right rear tire explode. Also, Tony Bruce Jr. lost a tire at the same time.

While tires were a concern earlier in the night, Kinser was not too worried about the Hoosier’s he had bolted on for the 30-lap A-Feature.

“The track laid a little bit of rubber in the heats, but they got it back to where you could race on it and had a pretty good race track,” he said. “Once we got to about halfway, we knew everyone would make it (on tires). We did work it pretty hard the last five or six laps.”

Kinser used a strong restart aboard the Q Oil Maxim to again quickly jump to a lead on Dollansky on the 12th lap. At this point, the Top-Four cars were strung out as they were in open track. Just a couple of laps after the restart, Kinser was in lapped traffic again and used both the high side and the low side of the track to clear the slower machines, while Dollansky was held up by a couple of lapped cars.

“It gave me an open race track,” the winner noted. “The most important thing was to not let anyone get a run on me going into (turn) one. After that, I could keep a pretty good pace. The top was probably the fastest there. When I got to lapped traffic I got through all of them pretty well, until late when the track had taken rubber and then I fell in line and followed them”

Kinser continued to lead as the laps wound down and with five laps to go, he again found himself in heavy lapped traffic, which allowed Dollansky to make up some ground on him. Even on the last lap, Kinser was negotiating traffic as he crossed the finish line about a second ahead of Dollansky.

“I would have liked to have been one spot better, but on the start my motor stumbled a little and we fell in line behind Steve (Kinser),” said Dollansky. “I thought we had a shot at him a few times in lapped traffic, but he was operating pretty good. The track rubbered up there as the race went on and it was pretty tough to pass from there on out.”

Jason Meyers lined up sixth for the A-Feature and gained three spots on the opening lap, charging around Jac Haudenschild, Joey Saldana and Donny Schatz. He lost the spot to Saldana on the next lap, but would regain it on the 12th lap when Saldana’s tire exploded while he was running third. Meyers would remain in third the rest of the way, to finish in that spot for the 11th time this season in the GLR Investments KPC.

“We are very happy with it,” said Meyers. “To come from ninth in the dash to sixth and then sixth to third, we kept climbing all night long. We kind of qualified in that hole of six-place and that puts you in a hole, but it was good battle back from that. It was a great effort by the team and a good podium finish and I’m looking forward to tomorrow night.”

Donny Schatz, the two-time defending World of Outlaws champion and North Dakota native finished fourth in the Armor All J&J and due to being the second fastest qualifier in time trials, actually gained two points on Meyers in the championship standings. Schatz remains the only driver that has finished in the Top-10 in each of the 41 events this season.

Jac Haudenschild was fifth in the Owens-Corning Fiberglass Maxim, with Daryn Pittman in sixth aboard the Titan Garages Maxim. Chad Kemenah was seventh in the Kantor Oil Company Maxim. Shane Stewart was eighth in the Roth Motorsports KPC, with Kerry Madsen in the TK Concrete Maxim coming home ninth. Terry McCarl in the Big Game Treestands Maxim rounded out the Top-10.

After closing in on Kinser a couple of times in traffic early in the race, Dollansky pointed to the lap 12 restart as probably the best chance he had to make a bid for the lead. He did gain a significant amount of ground late in the race, but ran out of laps as he tried to track down Kinser.

“That was the one shot at the end I had, and again we didn’t get going,” explained the Minnesota native. “We just stumbled a little bit there with the motor and he was able to get a run on me and get away from me. He did a good job. We came home second and we were pretty fast all night long. It just came down to the start and we didn’t get out of the hole good enough. It was a good Top-Two finish for this Larry Woodward team and everyone that supports us.”

Dollansky began the night by setting a new track record at Dacotah Speedway, throttling his way around the high-banks in 14.723 seconds, edging Donny Schatz for the quick time honor. The former World of Outlaws Gumout Series champion was thoroughly impressed by Dacotah Speedway and all of the hard work that went into welcoming the World of Outlaws for the first time.

“It’s a beautiful race track and a great facility,” he said. “I’m glad they went out and reworked the race track. Larry Hillerud and the folks at SLS (Promotions) put in the time and effort to get a good track to put on a good show for the fans.”

Meyers also was thrilled with the event and the capacity crowd that was in attendance. It was the fourth of six inaugural events this season for the World of Outlaws, and began with a block party in downtown Mandan, North Dakota on Friday night.

“This is another beautiful race track that SLS (Promotions) had brought to the series,” noted Meyers. “There was a great crowd here tonight and I am looking forward to coming back next year.”

The third-place performance for Meyers was his series-leading 33rd Top-Five finish of the season. He has won six A-Feature events and had been close to picking up number seven, as he has racked up 14 consecutive Top-Five finishes in World of Outlaws events, as he chases his first World of Outlaws title.

“They say if you put yourself in position to win, you’ll win. They’re just not falling our way yet,” Meyers said with a smile. “We are right there every night and they will come.”

The Advance Auto Parts World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series returns to action on Sunday, August 17 at Nodak Speedway in Minot, North Dakota with the finale of the Gerdau Ameristeel Northern Tour.