At the end of the night, Geoff Ensign can check off “sweeping both nights of the Louie Vermeil Classic” with the USAC Western Classic Racing Series. He wanted to improve on the 7th place overall finish from night one, and then went out and got it done as usual, finishing 5th overall in a motor down on horsepower due to the restrictor plates on the injectors and tires handicapped with a maximum width that is more narrow than the rest of the field can use due to the rules package for the Western Classic Racing Series. This morning, he’ll head to the race shop an hour away from his Sebastopol home and tear down two cars, do the maintenance on them and get ready for Silver Dollar Speedway on Thursday. He may even sleep in the raceshop, as he did last week. So is the life of Geoff Ensign, racing on a dream, and not much more.
Back to the racing:
Ensign started his night in Ted Finkenbinder’s/Western Industrial X-Ray/Eagle Chassis by drawing towards the end of the qualifying order. With the track in racing trim early on in qualifying, it had slicked off late and Ensign could only muster 14th fastest overall, which would put him inside of row #2 for his heat race.
Fighting a car that wasn’t handling in his heat, Ensign would still find a transfer spot to the A Main, finishing behind the three open engines in his heat race. After lineups were posted for the A, Ensign would start where he qualified, 14th.
In the main event, Ensign was positively on a mission, moving up 5 spots in two laps to 9th before a yellow came out. He continued to knock down spots until he got to 7th, then engaged in a duel between the recently crowned Placerville Speedway champion Andy Forsberg and Colby Copeland. Add some attrition and a couple passes, and Ensign had moved up 10 spots to 4th overall, again, in a car down on horsepower and traction. Ensign would fall back one spot before the checkers came out to another car running a “full” 410, but that didn’t dampen the celebration in victory lane, again the winner of the Western Classic Racing Series portion of the main event.
Ensign now finds himself on top of the WCRS charts points-wise by 10 markers heading into Thursday’s race at Silver Dollar Speedway in Chico, Ca. Vindication for a guy making it happen on a shoestring budget? Nope, he’s got more work to do before the next race.
On a side note, Ensign is still searching for that elusive midget ride for the show in Chico for Gold Cup week. If you are interested in contacting Geoff Ensign, search Geoff Ensign Motorsports on Facebook or you can contact him at geoffensign@rocketmail.com.
- Ron Lingron on Sep 05, 2011
- Article Date: 9/5/2011