Bakersfield’s Buddy Shepherd could almost see his second Spears Southwest tour victory and a $10,000 payday Saturday night at Kern County Raceway Park.
What he didn’t see, and likely should have expected, was the potential of a bump and run move by Jace Hansen, who was looking for vengeance along with his first win.
So when Shepherd went high in Turn 3 on the final lap Hansen pounced.. He put his right front fender into the left rear of Shepherd’s car. Shepherd got loose as Hansen drove under him. The lost momentum allowed Hansen to take the lead coming out of the final turn and beat Shepherd to the checkered flag by a tenth of a second in the Bulwark FR Firecracker 100.
Shepherd showed his displeasure with a bump of Hansen on the cool down lap and then again in victory lane after climbing out of his car and rushing to a still seated Hansen before quickly being pulled away.
“I hate to race like that, but I also hate getting ran over 10 laps into the race,” Hansen said. “We've got a 100 laps, he doesn’t have to move me out of the way. He should have known that was coming. If that’s how he wants to race I’m going to race him that way. I could have passed him clean. If that caution didn’t come out (on lap 86) I would have got by him clean.”
Hansen, of Greely, Col., set fast time in qualifying by .009 of a second over Shepherd and took the lead at the start of the 100-lap race. Shepherd tried to get by several times on the inside during the first six laps but Hansen held him at bay. That changed on lap 19 when Hansen went high into turn 1 with Shepherd under him. Dan Holtz made it a real party by trying to get low under Shepherd. Shepherd bumped Hansen and powered into the lead down the backstretch with Holtz right behind and Hansen dropping back to third.
Not surprisingly, Shepherd’s assessment of the early race incident was different from Hansen’s.
“I got into him there at the beginning because (Dan) Holtz was inside of me and (Hansen) was in a dead stop in the corner. I was on the brakes trying to stay off of him but got into him a little bit.
“That was just a racing deal because I had nowhere else to go. I figured Hotlz was going to get into me or go by both of us. It’s early in the race but I couldn’t do much about that.”
Shepherd led the way around the half-mile oval after that but by lap 70 Hansen was running second and hunting Shepherd. Hansen got under Shepherd and started to edge in front on the 86th lap when a caution flew, allowing Shepherd to maintain his lead.
Shepherd fended off Hansen on the subsequent restart and built a four-car advantage before Hansen mounted his final challenge.
“The last five (laps) it’s go time,” Hansen said. “We had to do what we had to do. Hat’s off to Buddy. We race together all the time. I just don’t deal with that stuff and he should know that. I’ll talk to him later on”
“I gave him a racing line, It’s uncalled for,” Shepherd said. “I figured he was going to race me clean.”
Jacob Gomes, who had won three straight races, finished a close third followed by Dustin Ash and Jeremy Doss.
Bradley Erickson led from start to finish to win the 54-lap Sigma Performance Services Pro Late Model feature. Tanner Reif was second with points leader Seth Wise of Bakersfield third.
Travis Thirkettle raced to his third straight Spears Manufacturing Modified feature as he led all 60 laps. Jaron Giannini was second, followed by Jimmy Sloan and Bakersfield’s Chris Dalton.
