|
|
|
5/1/2010 |
|
TC TAKES WHITE THEN SIZZLES ACROSS FINISH LINE FOR WIN
by
Denise DuPont |
|
 The 2010 Stafford Speedway Spring Sizzler race fizzled at the end
with a late race caution that led to a white-yellow-checker last
lap. While racing for the win, Jimmy Blewett hit the back of Ted
Christopher hard going into turn four. Christopher was able to
maintain control of his car, but the impact sent Blewett spinning to
the top of the track. Cars scattered and backed up behind the two to
avoid Blewett’s car. The caution flag was thrown for the incident
but since Christopher had already taken the white flag, he came out
as the race victor.
"That's Jimmy, Jimmy plays games," said Christopher. "That's just
the nature of the beast when you're racing with him. It gets down to
one or two to go like that, desperate people do desperate things.”
At the end of a race only one driver can take the checker flag and
victory and what ever happened during the race Christopher was the
winner. “At one point, he (Blewett) had a half a straight away lead,
but the end of the race is what really matters. The first part about
it does not really mean anything. Everybody gets to adjust in their
cars and he (Blewett) was right by me when we lined up and I ended
up getting by him. So I would say he had a good car but probably not
as good as my car.”
Christopher had his share of back luck when he had to recover from a
bad pit stop on lap 122 after which he fell from second all the way
back to tenth. "The air gun broke," Christopher said. “Sometimes you
have issues in a pit stop and unfortunately we did. I think that it
made it more exciting. It was definitely more fun for me to drive
like that.”
The opening event at Stafford is a 200 lap race and there were
betting odds on whether the leaders could complete the race without
a gas stop. Christopher’s crew was positive that he could make the
entire journey without additional gas so they did not pit for fuel.
“We were going to do a pit for gas and tires. We were going to pit
for one tire and then pit for three later on but we were pretty
confident that this thing could go the whole way.”
 Following Christopher across the finish line to take second was
Bobby Santos, III. Santos held on tight and drove past Blewett which
was a great recovery for Santos. Santos was leading the race when he
met up with lapped cars on lap 55. While passing the lapped car of
Johnny Bush the cars touched spinning Santos. “I do not know what
happened. He (Johnny Bush) said his car popped out of gear. I did
not even know what happened, we just got hit.”
Santos’s crew kept him calm while he regrouped to make his way from
mid pack back to the front. “Stay cool,” they said. “It is a long
race and we have to come back and try to win the race. The car did
not get torn up, we got behind and we tried to get back.”
In the end Santos was gassed up and ready to win, but he had to
settle for second. “So we were not really hoping for people to run
out of fuel but it was in the back of my head that it could be a
possibility that we had gas and they didn’t.”
Ted Christopher now has three consecutive Spring Sizzler wins for
his resume and a win towards a 2010 NWMT championship.
|
|
Source: Denise DuPont / TheChromeHorn.com
Posted: May
1, 2010 |
|
|
