Rivalry Brewing Between Wolf and Bumgarner
(May 15, 2012)…It has been a while since we have seen two drivers become bitter rivals at the Silver Dollar Speedway. However, after last Friday nights sprint car main event there seems to be a storm brewing between Tyler Wolf and Brad Bumgarner. The two have taken their differences with each other from the race track to Social Media this week. Each driver has “called out” the other through their personal Twitter feed or Facebook. “Back in the old days you would get into a disagreement at the track and by the time we got back the following weekend it was water under the bridge,” said Andy Forsberg. “Now with the message boards, Facebook and Twitter it can let this stuff linger and build until the next race.”
Friday night will mark point race #6. It will feature the 410 winged sprints, dwarf cars, Wingless sprints and street stocks. Front gate will open at 6pm with racing scheduled to start at 7pm. General adult admission is $12.00. Juniors and seniors are $10.00 and children $6.00.
The night’s event is sponsored by our local Enterprise Rent-A-Car. Two Chico locations include 2267 Esplanade / (530) 899-1188 and 2500 Zanella Way /(530) 342-7300. JP’s Paint and Body Works is also sponsoring the night. Both places of business plan to have give-a-ways and other fan themed items.
The Silver Dollar BMX track will also be in attendance. We have given the club 50 tickets to be distributed for the young riders. We plan on celebrating them this Friday night during the national anthem.
Last Friday night during the 25-lap main event, Tyler Wolf and Brad Bumgarner were racing side by side. Going into turn three, Wolf dove to the inside of Bumgarner. They continued side-by-side going through turns three and four when wheels were touched and an accident occurred. Wolf ended up on his side while Bumgarner spun around. Bumgarner got out of his car and went up to the drivers opening of Wolf. Who knows what was said but Bumgarner was definitely probably upset because he felt Wolf had drove over the top of his front end. Bumgarner stayed in that area and was there to help put the car back onto all four wheels. Once the car came back to a rest a huge fire erupted. According to Bumgarner, he helped Wolf get free of the car and suffered some burns on his arms.
The remarkable part of the whole deal was both cars went back to the work area and their crews sent the drives back into the cockpit and continued to race. After the race was over, Bumgarner came up behind Wolf and gave him a bump from behind. The bump caused damage to Wolf’s tail tank. After the races, Wolf went down into Bumgarner’s pit area to question the post race bump. Heated words were exchanged but no fighting transpired.
Later in the night is when the Social Media jabbing took place. Bumgarner tweeted he got taken out by a Wolf. On Saturday Wolf went on the offensive and posted a picture of his damaged tail tank and said this on his Facebook account, “To everyone wondering why I was mad at Brad Bumgarner last night after the races is cuz of this! This was done after the race was over. Talk about a poor sport!” His post has brought nearly 20 different opinions from fans of out sport. In response to Wolf’s words, Bumgarner posted, “If you are not with us, then you are against us and that is a bad place to be. There will be no middle ground.”
Obviously both drivers are taking heat from this situation. It will be interesting to see how it will play into this Friday nights race. Judging by their words, this rivalry has just started and is not ready to end anytime soon. Bumgarner added, “You know we are going to end up next to each other in a heat race or the main event. It seems to always happen when you have a beef with another driver.” If that happens, then all bets are off. Judging by the harsh words spoken towards each other it could make this Friday night a must attend race.
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- troy hennig on May 15, 2012
- Article Date: 5/15/2012 by Troy Hennig / Steve Cox Photo