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Orange Show Speedway held its first-ever Grand American Modified race July 23, and Fallbrook’s Mike Salm placed fourth in the 35-lap main event.
Salm’s fourth-place finish came despite second-lap contact with Doug Carpenter, which placed both drivers in the back after Carpenter spun. Dean Kuhn, Jimmy Dickerson and Carpenter took the top three positions in the main event.
“All the Cajon guys were the fast guys,” Salm remarked.
Three other drivers with Cajon Speedway experience also raced at the quarter-mile San Bernardino oval July 23. Danny Gay, the 2004 Modified champion at Cajon, qualified fifth but had car problems in the main event. Jeff Thompson finished fifth in the main event, although the top four cars lapped the rest of the field. Len Cartwright was the seventh Cajon Speedway driver to run the initial Modified race at Orange Show.
Most of the rest of the cars were from Blythe Speedway, which is closed during summer months. The Orange Show race had a total of 13 Modifieds.
“Pretty good car count,” Salm said. “They had a pretty good turnout.”
Orange Show is not only a smaller track than the 3/8-mile Cajon Speedway and the half-mile and third-mile ovals at Irwindale Speedway, but it is also a narrower track than Cajon or Irwindale. After plans for a 2005 season at Cajon Speedway fell through, some Cajon drivers went to Orange Show while others went to Irwindale or to dirt tracks. Top Sportsman Stocks and Street Stocks drivers from Cajon Speedway continued their racing careers at Orange Show, but the track did not have a Modified class.
Salm, who began racing at Cajon Speedway in 1996, had purchased a Modified from Brian Rupe prior to the start of his racing career. Salm sold that car to John Tyczki Jr. after the 2003 season, and the driver who subsequently purchased that car from Tyczki was the first to notify Salm of the Orange Show race, giving Salm two weeks notice before the competition. “I got quite a few calls after that,” Salm added.
The Salm family moved from Lake Arrowhead to Fallbrook in 1976, and David Salm often took his son to races at Orange Show Speedway. “I was looking forward to running the Orange Show,” Mike Salm remarked.
Salm and his crew spent about a week getting ready. “We weren’t prepared,” he said.
In addition to getting Salm’s current car ready to race, the car also had to be set up for the quarter-mile track. “Our setup turned out to be pretty good for being the first time there,” Salm remarked.
One of the changes involved track tire stipulations. “We had to switch from Goodyears to Hoosier Tires, and they seemed to work pretty good,” Salm noted.
The setup changes also included panhard bar adjustments and some spring adjustments. “All in all the setup we went up there with seemed to do pretty darn good,” Salm said. “The setup actually worked pretty decently.”
The lack of a Modified division in the past meant that Orange Show had no rules for Modifieds, so the only rules July 23 involved safety considerations. The track is expected to develop rules prior to the next race August 20, and those rules will likely be closer to the Blythe rulebook than to the Cajon rules.
“We have to do some more homework,” Salm remarked.
Despite the relative lack of preparation, Salm qualified second with a lap of 13.92 seconds. Kuhn was the fast qualifier at 13.84 seconds.
The top four qualifiers were inverted for a Trophy Dash. Salm finished third, ahead of Kuhn, while Dickerson won the dash and Carpenter finished second.
No inversions were involved for the eight-lap fast and slow heat races, so Salm began the fast heat race on the outside of the front row. “That track is real hard to run on the outside groove,” Salm noted. “That track is almost impossible to pass on the outside.”
He was unable to get to the inside groove until Kuhn and two other cars passed him. “By the time we got back on the inside we were in fourth,” Salm said.
Salm stayed in fourth for the rest of the heat race as the three cars in front of him maintained lines on the inside groove.
Kuhn, as the fast qualifier, drew the pea pick to invert the top qualifiers to start the main event. The top four qualifiers were inverted, putting Salm on the inside of the second row and Carpenter on the outside of the front row.
In the second lap Salm and Carpenter made contact. “It was just a racing deal,” Salm explained.
Carpenter spun to cause a yellow flag, and since Salm was involved in the contact he was also sent to the back. “We had to basically start from last position and work ourselves up during the race,” Salm said.
During subsequent yellow flags Salm noticed a carburetion problem with his car. “It just wouldn’t run for about four or five laps,” he noted.
That, along with the difficulty of passing on the outside, kept Salm from passing Carpenter, but the two kept the fans thrilled in a battle for third. “It was kind of a dogfight between me and him,” Salm remarked.
“I was trying to get around him, and he was trying to protect his position,” Salm noted. “We just didn’t have the room to get around him.”
Salm felt that he could have passed Carpenter had conditions permitted. “He had a better car on the restarts, but after we got going we had a better car,” Salm remarked.
Salm’s crew for the night consisted of Tim Barnes, Jim Gray, Linda Gray, Stacey Gray, Jim Lorenz, Donna Salm and John Tyczki Jr.
Although the dates other than the August 20 race are to be announced, Orange Show officials informed the Modified drivers that there would likely be four or five races at the track during the 2005 season. “They were pretty impressed with the show,” Salm said.
Orange Show officials also told the drivers that the Modifieds might become a regular division in 2006.
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