By Gary Thomas, Steve Lamothe photo
Placerville, CA – April 29, 2010…After having a promising run cut short at the Placerville Speedway last week Stephen Allard and Smitty Boys Racing will return to the high-banked quarter-mile this Saturday night with the California Sprint Car Civil War Series invading the El Dorado County Fairgrounds track.
This past Saturday’s event was the first time Allard sat behind the wheel of a sprint car since last year’s Trophy Cup in Tulare, where he drove the Jeff Griffin Racing No. 50 to a ninth place finish in the overall points out of 68-entrants. “It really felt good to get back in a car last weekend and I wish the night could have ended better, but the main thing is that we were fast and have something build on,” said Allard. “I have to thank this whole team for giving me the opportunity to drive for them and I’m looking forward to the partnership.”
With Allard becoming the new driver of the Darin Smith/ Steve Smith owned Smitty Boys Racing winged sprinter recently, the team headed to the second Red Hawk Casino 360 point race for a test and tune on things last Saturday in Placerville.
Issues early on though forced Allard to take one lap at the end of qualifying and a 10.545 placed him 15th fastest in the field. Going to work on the car following qualifying he then started from the last row in his heat race and was able to move forward to score fifth and transfer the AA Johnson & Sons Concrete, Laughs Unlimited, Butler Built Performance No. 14s into the main event. Starting from 12th in the feature the former two-time Silver Dollar Speedway track champion bided his time, as a handful of wrecks slowed the pace of the 25-lapper early on.
When racing got into a flow Allard attacked the always challenging red-clay bullring and charged through the pack with authority, making a great move to get by both Scott Russell and Mason Moore on the same lap to claim third. The Chico driver then set his sights on second place Jimmy Trulli however, “heart-break-city” would occur shortly after when rear-end issues spelled the end of the evening. “It was definitely disappointing to have the main event end like that, because this car was phenomenal and I felt like we had what it took to win the race,” said Allard. “We’ll just keep our chins up though and come back this weekend to have some fun with Civil War.”
Team co-owner Darin Smith, commonly known to the dirt track world as “Heavy-D” was also pleased with the performance during the first night out as a combination. “We’re really happy to have Stephen Allard come on board as the driver for Smitty Boys Racing, because he’s been one of the very best out here for a long time and is too good of a racer to be sitting on the sidelines,” said Heavy-D. “We kind of came from behind the eight-ball last Saturday, but “SA” did a great job in the feature and I really believe we had a shot at winning the thing till the problems happened.”
This Saturday’s California Sprint Car Civil War event in Placerville will be Allard’s first series start since carving his way from 22nd to third at last season’s Pacific Sprint Cup Invitational, held during Wednesday night of the Gold Cup Race of Champions in September at Silver Dollar Speedway. “Last year when I drove for Dorothy Lee in the 4 car we were really fast with Civil War, but seemed to have no luck at all so I would certainly like to have a good run on Saturday,” Allard commented. “There should be a pretty strong field of cars, but if we are as fast as we were last week I think we’ll have as good of a shot as anyone.”
Going into this weekend’s race “Heavy-D” is hopeful that the team will be in contention after getting a night of racing under their belts with Allard last Saturday. “We’re really hoping to come back with Civil War this week and finish what we started last Saturday,” Smith said. “I have to thank my partner Steve Smith of AA Johnson & Sons Concrete, all of our crew and sponsors for helping out with this team. We definitely want to get this car on the front stretch this week and we’ll be giving it our best to make that happen. The Civil War shows are always tough, but we’re up to the challenge and can’t wait to hit the track on Saturday.”