Brooktown claims a fourth at Perris

For the first time in nearly three months, the Brooktown Racing car driven by Jim Ramsey and Dennis Allen posted a top-five finish in the Cruiser division main event October 28 at the Perris Auto Speedway.

The fourth-place finish matched the July 29 showing of the two Fallbrook drivers. “We’re happy. The team of Ramsey and Allen are back,” Allen said. “Once the two of us are together in the car it really flies.”

The Cruiser division involves two drivers; one controls the steering wheel and brake pedal while the other driver has the throttle. Allen had expected to miss the October 28 race due to a Vintage Auto Racing Association competition in Las Vegas, but after checking the VARA schedule he learned that the Las Vegas race was actually the previous week. Although Allen could not travel to Las Vegas that weekend, he was able to race at Perris.

Ramsey and Allen finished sixth in the heat race. Brooktown Racing drivers Scott Urquhart and Brian Tully finished eighth in that heat race while Dave Hill and Bob Hunsaker crashed in the first lap and exited early. Kevin Martin and Debbie Martin did not race due to a torque converter problem with their car.

Kevin and Debbie Martin were part of the pit crew October 28, joining Linda Costello, Roy Costello, Debbie Nowell, and Frank Sperling.

Spelling was making his pit crew debut and handled a spark plug which came off Ramsey and Allen’s car. “Thank goodness for Frank,” Allen said.

Tully also competed in the Street Stocks division. His previous Street Stocks race September 23 ended when his Nova went airborne during the main event before landing on its side. Tully expects the Nova to be ready by the 2007 season, but he used the Camaro he had raced before purchasing the Nova earlier this year.

Tully finished sixth in his heat race, and he was sixth in the B-main which qualified him for the main event. Tully began the main event in 17th place and finished tenth. “It ran good. It was really loose and the track was really rutty and slick. I think I lost a couple of shock absorbers out there,” he said.

Tully had put new heads and new springs on the Camaro, and the race was the first for that car with the current setup.

Ramsey and Allen began the main event on the outside of the second row. They fell back to fifth but were running alongside the fourth-place car.

“Dennis wouldn’t let off the gas tonight,” Ramsey said.

“Our car actually ran real well,” Allen said. “We were running with the leaders. They weren’t pulling us.”

It was the cars which weren’t running, along with the track’s new 10:30 p.m. curfew, which kept Ramsey and Allen from advancing. A red flag stoppage in the Cruiser heat race, several yellow flags in other races, and two red flags in the Cruiser main event limited the final race to five laps in order to meet the curfew which was changed in early October from 11:00 p.m. to 30 minutes earlier.

The second red flag involved a rollover of the #13 car driven by Daniel Henderson and Eric King. The car rolled four times, once end over end and three times on its side, but the drivers were able to walk away from the collision and the stuffed black cat bolted to the back of the car for the Halloween weekend was undamaged.

The checkered flag was thrown after that accident. The #13 car had been third before the rollover, but it was given a finishing position behind the upright cars to move Ramsey and Allen into fourth.

“It feels good to get on the leaderboard,” Ramsey said. “We haven’t been there in a long time.”

Urquhart and Tully finished seventh in the main event, and the actual pumpkin on top of their car survived the pre-Halloween races undamaged. Hill and Hunsaker finished ninth in the main event.

If weather permits, the Cruisers’ final race of 2006 will take place November 11.