East Bay Winter Nationals Modifieds

TAMPA, FL…..2/19/05…..It was a surprise ending after a wild 75-lap race and the winner Joel Cryderman told the truth when he said, “I was just hoping I didn’t get wrecked.” The Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada driver became the fifth different feature winner of the week at East Bay Raceway Park and added his name as another new winner of the 6th Annual Ramada Inn on Tampa Bay Open Wheel Modified Winternationals worth $8,000.

“It’s only my fifth time in a Modified. I usually drive a Late Model at Cedar Lake, but I borrowed this chassis from Specialty Fabricating in Fargo ND and the guy that builds them is Jay McDonald. He and Sonny Dumpkin wanted me to come and Craig at Christsy’s Auto Wrecking helped also. Don Gumpke at Dakota Engines let me borrow this engine. So I got my crew, Martin and Tyler Winther and Dale Geer to come with me. Most of all, I want to thank my wife Holly for letting me come down here,” Cryderman said as he relaxed after his win.

Turning in his best effort in only his second time at East Bay, 20 year old Dave Hess used his Hess/Clinger chassis powered by a Craiger Racing Engine to stay up front all night and finish second. Sponsors on the car include Hess Garage and Salvage, Plyler Overhead Doors, Wright Heating & Cooling and Pepsi. “I want to thank my Mom and Dad, Jim Cluger and my crew Jason and Terry Daniels.

Third place finisher was Julie McDermid who admitted in her interview that, “I wanted to stay calm and be smooth. I went with a harder compound tire than what I’m use to.” Julie drives a semi-truck for her major sponsor, McDermid Transportation, hauling out of Wisconsin and Utah, but she has come to the Open Wheel Winternationals for the last four years and enjoys East Bay. She brought a new DirtWorks chassis here with a Dynatech Engine and used Afco Shocks. Mike Wedelstadt helps mechanic the car which has sponsorship help from Russ Knapp, J&C Auto Salvage, K.W. Rusch, Inc. and the Forest County Potawatomi (a Native American Tribe).

The tangle Cryderman was able to avoid happened on lap 59. The four front-runners were in tight formation with Cryderman leading and Shane Cottle attempting to get under him in turn four. Third place David Hess and fourth running Julie McDermid were half a car length back. The front two cars bumped together and then struggled to regain a straight line coming down the front stretch as they almost collected Hess and McDermid. Cottle succeeded in taking the lead from Cryderman and the others fell in close behind him.

There were five lead changes in the feature as the 85 cars on hand were cut to 24 cars for the A-Main. The top six in points for the week drew for starting positions giving Bill Howard and Hess in the front row. Bob Pohlman, Jr and Chad Kinder made up row two while Kent Arment and Cottle were in the next row.

Hess stayed on the high side of Howard and led the first lap, but Howard proved to be too fast on the bottom and led through lap 35 and survived four yellow flags which put the competition on his tail. The first yellow was on lap nine for Chad Kinder, who was running third and spun to the inside in turn two. Randle Sweeney spun in turn three on lap 14, then Kevin Weaver suffered a flat tire on lap 17 to slow the field once again.

Through this period Howard continued to lead Hess, Pohlman and Cottle, until lap 24 when Cottle moved up to third. A yellow for a three car tangle in between turns one and two caused a fourth restart on lap 25. Cottle moved into second after the restart and was pressuring Howard when Jimmy Owens slowed and collected four cars on lap 34 in turn one. When the green came out again, Howard stayed low and Cryderman went to the high groove and one lap later was able to overtake Howard.

Pohlman spun on lap 44 and a fuel only stop was necessary. Once racing resumed, Cottle began pressuring the leader Cryderman in every turn as the race passed the 50 lap mark. The lap 59 tangle had Cottle come out as the leader and by lap 65 he had a three car length advantage over Cryderman. However, on lap 72 Cottle spun and Cryderman barely missed him, but did end up clipping the spinning car with his right side panel.

On the last restart with three laps to go, Cryderman’s car had parts and pieces dragging, but managed to hold off Hess and McDermid at the checkered. Roger Crouse finished fourth followed by Joey Jensen, Craig Thatcher, Chad Kinder, Jeff Leka, Ed Shamhart and Kenny Gaddis in the top ten. Cottle and Howard fell out of the top ten and finished 11th and 12th.

The C-Mains were won by Justin Ratliff and Shawn Peterson, while the B-Mains went to Kenny Gaddis and Corey Conley. Heats were won by Cryderman, Brady Short, Jason Hughes, Steve Arpin, Owens, Shamhart, Jensen, Dan Hamstra and Thatcher.The Gulf Coast Strawberry Dash was won by Steven Mueller.

Thanks, Jean Lynch for East Bay Raceway Park





STATS – OPEN WHEEL MODIFIEDS - EAST BAY RACEWAY PARK – SATURDAY, 2/19/05


Top 6 in points locked into A Main – 1) 78 Shane Cottle 2) 9 Kent Arment 3) 48 Bill Howard 4) 22S Chad Kinder 5) 1P Bob Pohlman, Jr. 6) 44H David Hess – and redraw – Remainder of cars ran heat races



1st Heat – (Winners to A – Get Points Back) - 1)Joel Cryderman 2)Jeff Mathews 3)David Schmauss 4)John Bradley 5)Paul Wilmoth, Jr. 6)Richard Harlow 7)Terry Haven 8)Terry Hayes

2nd Heat – 1)Brady Short 2)Roger Crouse 3)Kelly Shryock 4)Mark Dotson 5)Terry J. McClintock 6)Michael Hess 7)Brian Taft 8)Corey Partin

3rd Heat – 1)Jason Hughes 2)Jeff Leka 3)Steve Hughes 4)BJ McCammon 5)Greg Oakes 6)Justin Rattliff 7)Thomas Sigler 8)Kevin DeYoung

4th Heat – 1)Julie McDermid 2)Jason Miller 3)Denny Schwartz 4)Scott Duvall 5)Matt Goulden 6)Brian Hollifield 7)Wess Weinman 8)Jason Barnhill

5th Heat – 1)Steve Arpin 2)Craig Christiansen 3)Ron Jones 4)Kevin Weaver 5)Kenny Gaddis 6)Frank Marshall 7)Chris Butler 8)Mark Rigdon

6th Heat – 1)Jimmy Owens 2)Brad Waits 3)David Cain 4)Rick Hensley 5)Chad Osterhoff 6)Chad Ohnstad 7)Mark Herbert 8)Mike Oldenberg

7th Heat – 1)Ed Shamhart 2)Rob Fuqua 3)Mark Trautner 4)Randle Sweeney 5)Tim Moore 6)Steve Mueller 7)Kenny Carlson 8)Dano Ostrander

8th Heat – 1)Joey Jensen 2)Corey Conley 3)Dick Peterson 4)Mike Wedelstadt 5)Zach Vander Beek 6)Trevor Merrell 7)Shon Flanary 8)David Boerner

9th Heat – 1)Dan Hamstra 2)Brad Rohloff 3)Brent Glastetter 4)Devin Dixon 5)Greg Reutimann 6)Ryan Corbett 7)Craig Scott 8)Ivodent Lloyd, Jr.

10 Heat – 1)Craig Thatcher 2)Carlton Jackson 3)Bruce Watkins 4)Blake Jegtvig 5)Chris Veech 6)Shawn Peterson 7)Buzzie Reutimann



1st C-Main – (2 Qualify to 1st B – Get Points Back) – 1)Justin Rattliff 2)Frank Marshall 3)Michael Hess 4)Thomas Sigler 5)Terry Haven 6)Kevin DeYoung 7)Wess Weinman 8)Jason Barnhill 9)Chris Butler 10)Terry Hayes 11)Corey Partin 12)Brian Taft 13)Richard Harlow 14)Brian Hollifield 15)Mark Rigdon



2nd C-Main – (2 Qualify to 2nd B – Get Points Back) – 1)Shawn Peterson 2)Chad Ohnstad 3)Steve Mueller 4)Shon Flanary 5)Craig Scott 6)Kenny Carlson 7)Ryan Corbett 8)Trevor Merrell 9)David Boerner 10)Mike Oldenberg 11)Mark Herbert 12)Dano Ostrander 13)Ivodent Lloyd, Jr. DNS 14)Buzzie Reutimann DNS



1st B-Main – (3 Qualify to A – Get Points Back) - 1)Kenny Gaddis 2)Jeff Leka 3)Roger Crouse 4)David Schmauss 5)Frank Marshall 6)Steve Hughes 7)Greg Oakes 8)Paul Wilmoth, Jr. 9)Terry J. McClintock 10)Matt Goulden 11)Scott Duvall 12)Jason Miller 13)BJ McCammon 14)Kevin Weaver 15)Justin Rattliff 16)Denny Schwartz 17)John Bradley 18)Craig Christiansen 19)Jeff Mathews 20)Ron Jones 21)Mark Dotson DNS 22)Kelly Shryock DNS



2nd B-Main – (3 Qualify to A – Get Points Back) – 1)Corey Conley 2)Randle Sweeney 3)Brad Waits 4)Rob Fuqua 5)Brent Glastetter 6)Carlton Jackson 7)Mark Trautner 8)David Cain 9)Dick Peterson 10)Zach Vander Beek 11)Mike Wedelstadt 12)Chad Osterhoff 13)Rick Hensley 14)Devin Dixon 15)Blake Jegtvig 16)Greg Reutimann 17)Chad Ohnstad 18)Chris Veech 19)Brad Rohloff 20)Shawn Peterson 21)Tim Moore 22)Bruce Watkins



A – Main (6th Annual Ramada Inn on Tampa Bay Race - 75 Laps – $8,000 to win) – 1)Joel Cryderman 2)David Hess 3)Julie McDermid 4)Roger Crouse 5)Joey Jensen 6)Craig Thatcher 7)Chad Kinder 8)Jeff Leka 9)Ed Shamhart 10)Kenny Gaddis 11)Shane Cottle 12)Bill Howard 13)Kent Arment 14)Bob Pohlman, Jr. 15)Steve Arpin 16)Brady Short 17)Jimmy Owens 18)Jason Hughes 19)Dan Hamstra 20)Corey Conley 21)Kevin Weaver 22)Randle Sweeney 23)John Bradley 24)Brad Waits



Gulf Coast Produce Strawberry Dash – 1)Steven Mueller 2)Jason Miller 3)Jason Barnhill 4)Kevin DeYoung 5)Chad Ohnstad 6)Matt Goulden 7)Chris Butler 8)David Cain 9)Terry Hughes