The Lakeport Speedway hosted the Marlene Baker Memorial Bomber Bash #13 last Saturday night. The event featured the Pro-4 Modifieds, Mini-Stocks, Bombers, and a special invitational for Super Modifieds. The main events were extended to 50 laps, and the night ended with the grand finale �Fiberglass 500� Boat Race.

Ken Gifford set a new Lakeport Speedway Pro-4 Modified track record of 12.848s. The rest of the night was all Joe Sloan who won the trophy dash, his heat race, and the main event.

A Super Modified is a normal Modified with slick tires and as many as two giant wings mounted on top of the car. The tires provide better traction, and the wings deliver a tremendous amount of downforce holding the car to the track. This combination turns the normally fast Modifieds into nimble rockets. The fast time of 12.288s was set by Gary Lowblad from Upper Lake. Mike Sullivan both won the trophy dash, and the main event after a 15-lap duel for the lead.

The Mini-Stock fast time of 13.754s was set by Dale Bulmer of Roseville. He also won the trophy dash, and held the lead for the last 20 laps despite being hard-pressed to win the main event.

No time trials were held for the Bombers as their starting positions were determined by a random draw. Nothing could stop the 2008 Bomber Champion Roman Rose from Lakeport as he quickly gained the lead and held it against Dylan Rose and Mike Doss to win the Bomber Bash main event.

The �Fiberglass 500� Boat Race

The grand finale �Fiberglass 500� Boat Race started with a field of 23 cars dragging boats. It was a faster track than usual, and they got tangled up in turn one almost immediately. Michael  Bishop in the �Six Pack Jack� was impressive with both speed and power to nimbly whip his bright purple boat when and where he wanted.

The armada was so tempest tossed that it was a challenge to find the time to hunt down boats. Kyle Medina and Chelsea Moses got wound around each other so tight that each was buried under the boat of the other. John Moore found himself run aground upside the turn one wall, Jeremy Prince started throwing gouts of smoke on the frontstretch, and Don Reid got caught in a maelstrom between three other cars in turn two.

Like a stealth shark in a tuna run, Scott Sabol wove his black wagon through almost all of the debris, but once found himself fetched up with a boat cable wrapped around his right rear wheel. He made up for it when he gave Bishop’s boat a broadside to the wall, spinning Bishop into the frontstretch. Sabol paid for it though. When he cleared Bishop’s boat, he found himself run headlong into two other stalled boats, spinning all three into the infield.

Everywhere you looked, it seemed there was the huge bright orange boat of Gino Buchignani acting like a disaster buoy marking where he had spun yet another victim. Bob Strauss was a favorite with his boat �Jaws� sporting a Super-Modified giant wing. He lost his right-rear tire and shot a St. Elmo’s Fire fan of sparks as his rim ground against the asphalt.

However, Bishop was to lay claim to the most impressive kill. Tim LaPoint had wound up turned sideways on the frontstretch during one of the track-clearing red flags. When the green fell, he was too slow to move. Bishop, with a full head of steam from turn three, rocked the crowd by blowing straight through the side of LaPoint’s boat in a resounding explosion of fiberglass.

As always, after the checkered flag was thrown, all the cars with surviving boats docked in front of the main grandstand and the crowd of fans voted on the winners as loudly and riotously as they could.

The winners were: