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Herrera and Reid Take Sweeps at Hollywood Hills Speedway
by Bob Ingram / Beth Hazlewood
7-19-2008 --- Hollywood Hills Speedway @ Casino Hollywood, San Felipe Pueblo, New Mexico. For the second week in a row Hollywood Hills Speedway dodged a huge weather bullet. In spite of heavy rain that had water running over the curbs in Albuquerque and torrential rain that limited visibility to a few feet on the Interstate just a few miles from the Speedway, a very nice crowd of enthusiastic fans were on hand to see 89 cars compete in 5 divisions. Ex World of Outlaws driver Johnny Herrera again handily won both his heat race and the 25 lap Main Event. Unlike Herrera, current Modified points leader Butch Reid waited until after the white flag in both his heat race and the 25 lap Main Event to take the lead and the win. If you are only going to lead less than a lap it certainly pays off to make it the last lap. Joining the regularly scheduled Sprints, Modifieds, Street Stocks and Mini-Sprints on the program tonight was a nice field of 16 Dwarf cars making their first appearance at HHS. Joining the 5 N.M. drivers were 4 drivers from Arizona and 7 from Colorado. These small cars put on some very good races and are looking forward to returning to HHS on August 2nd.
The Non-Winged Sprint cars had a nice field of 23 cars to run 3 heat races and a 25 lap main event. There were no yellow flags in any of the heat races even though the track was still a tad bit slippery from the rain earlier in the evening. However there was one red flag in the 3rd heat as last years champion, Bo Baker in the #61X took a relatively minor tumble going into turn one. Baker was able to make repairs to his ride and start and finish the main event. Heat #1 had the #45X of Johnny Herrera take the win over a very hard charging Randy Smith in the #26 with the #78 of Jody Williams coming home in the 3rd position. Heat #2 saw teenage rookie driver Cody Mansfield in the #4X take a close win over the #11W of Tim West with another teenage rookie driver Jordan Mattson in the #24 taking 3rd place. Heat #3 was probably the closest of the heat races but ended with only 4 of the 7 starters still around at the checkered flag. At about the midway point the #61X of Baker tangled with 2 or 3 other cars and did a couple of flips collecting the unfortunate car of #40X Scott Box along the way, ending the race for both drivers. In the end the win went to the #22M of Jesse Baker with the #9 of Minneola Texas driver Billy Page taking the 2nd spot and the #8 of J.C. Powell coming home a very close 3rd. The Main Event a great early battle between the father and son duo of Randy Smith (dad) and Ronnie Smith fighting for the lead. Ronnie was in the #16 car of track director Tom Ball for tonight’s racing. There was a large group of drivers fighting for position close behind the Smith tandem. Most notably among this group was the #45X of Johnny Herrera making his move toward the front from his 11th starting spot. Herrera steadily picked of the competitors one by one and finally got by the Smith’s. Once in the lead Herrera pulled out to a half lap victory at the checkered flag. Chasing Herrera to the stripe were the #26 of Randy Smith, #11W Tim West, #9 Billy Page and the #16 of Ronnie Smith filling out the top five spots.
Be sure to come out next Saturday when the Modifieds will be joined by the Late Models, Hobby Stocks and the Cruisers. Also next week HHS will be hosting the Old-Timers reunion for drivers who ran in the Albuquerque area prior to 1981. Right now there are over 160 drivers and guest from around the country registered to attend this event. Along with the Old-Timers will be some of the old Sportsman and Super-Modifieds from that time era on display just west of the main Casino facility.
Have A Great Day
God Bless Everybody
Sprints
Heat #1
#45 Johnny Herrera
#26 Randy Smith
#78 Jody Williams
#21P Paul Whitehead
#52NM David Burns
#50 Jerry Higginbotham
#7 Jason Tanner – DNF
#27 Shawn Kautz – DNF
Heat #2
#4X Cody Mansfield
#11W Tim West
#24 Jordan Mattson
#19 Ted McAdams
#93 Jon Taylor
#99 Chuck Jackson
#17 Steve Spiak
#76 Tom Stringfellow
Heat #3
#22M Jesse Baker
#9 Billy Page
#16 Ronnie Smith
#40X Scott Box – DNF
#61X Bo Baker – DNF
#65 Rick Johnson – DNF
Main Event
#45X Johnny Herrera
#26 Randy Smith
#11W Tim West
#16 Ronnie Smith
#22M Jesse Baker
#9 Billy Page
#61X Bo Baker
#4X Cody Mansfield
#78 Jody Williams
#52NM David Burns
#65 Rick Johnson
#93 Jon Taylor
#21P Paul Whitehead
#50 Jerry Higginbotham
#76 Tom Stringfellow
#99 Chuck Jackson
#19 Ted McAdams
#17 Steve Spiak – DNF
#24 Jordan Mattson – DNF
#40X Scott Box – DNF
#33 Shawn Kautz – DNF
#8 J.C. Powell – DNF
#7 Jason Tanner - DNS |
