Night 1 of the Louie Vermeil Classic at beautiful Calistoga Speedway in Calistoga, CA was a lesson in point racing for Sebastopol, California’s Geoff Ensign, whose results were as solid as they come while racing a car handicapped with restrictors on the injectors due to a ruling from USAC to keep the Western Classic Racing Series running their same rules during this “open” show. The WCRS, to allow 360 Sprint Cars to compete with the 410 Sprint Cars, restricts horsepower to the 410 engines and allows open 360 Sprint Cars to compete, however, it also guarantees the WCRS 410 cars to be down on horsepower when the USAC/CRA crew competes at the same time as the WCRS as was the case last night. Ensign had 32 points to make up on point leader Tony Hunt, and all systems were go for this night honoring Louie Vermeil, the Godfather of Northern California Sprint Car racing.
Ensign got the night started well, qualifying second fastest of all the WCRS cars, 14th overall, slotting him inside of row #2 for his heat race. The Human Highlight Reel shot to the lead by the time the field hit the backstretch and led the first two laps before Mike Spencer, a two time USAC/CRA champion, motored by him and Ensign had to settle for second, finishing ahead of a pair of USAC/CRA regulars and earning a ticket to the A Main event. “The car was a little tight, but I was on cruise control. When I saw Spencer, I didn’t exactly let him by, but I’m point racing so I wasn’t going to go at it with him. I just wanted to make sure I made the A.”
When feature time rolled around, Ensign would start outside of row 6.
From his 12th place starting spot, and in a green to checkered main event, Ensign won a race long duel with with Ryan Bernal and gained 5 spots to finish 7th, ending up the highest finishing WCRS car behind a slew of USAC/CRA cars piloted by the who’s who of open wheel, non-winged racing in California named Ballou, Sheridan, Mitchell, Spencer, Gardner and Faas. At the end of the night, Ensign gained 14 points on Hunt, and now sits just 18 points out of the WCRS point lead going into night two tonight. “Gotta thank Ted Finkenbinder for giving me a great car. He’s as disappointed we can’t run unrestricted as I am at a race like this, but when you’re point racing, there’s not much you can do but follow the rules. We’ll try to get faster tomorrow night.”
You can find Geoff Ensign on Facebook, search Geoff Ensign Motorsports or email at geoffensign@rocketmail.com.
- Ron Lingron on Sep 04, 2011
- Article Date: 9/4/2011