Louisiana Invitational - New Orleans, LA
Heat Four
John McCrory, Darrell Andresen, Norm Gibson, John Ruiz, Scott Hutchins, John Ruiz, Randy Corson, Will Murphy,
It was something of a free-for-all on three of the starting drivers in the final heat. Darrell Andresen taking a pair of hits in the first and John McCrory was hit three times in the opening two minutes, but the big victim was Ides of March winner John Ruiz. Ruiz tried his best to survive five brutal minutes where he took no less than nine shots with Andresen laying on a pair, Scott Hutchins and Norm Gibson both bringing the pain on three occasions.
But before his eventual exit there were two other competitors who fell by the wayside in a rather meek fashion as, after qualifying for eight finals in the first eleven weeks where ended up no worse than sixth with four podiums to his credit, Will Murphy fails in his fifth straight attempt to reach another as he stalled out. Right behind was John McCrory, the five-time finalist with a career best third place at the Seattle Derby avoiding a hit only to crash into the wall where he would remain.
Ruiz then goes a seventh consecutive week without a final, and six-time finalist Darrell Andresen, who managed a career high fourth place in his most recent appearance in Indy, did not pick his hits on two hits each on Ruiz and Murphy which resulted in his exit.
Randy Corson, who managed a pair of fifth place finishes to start the season at Frostbite and Tampa, misses his eleventh final in the next fourteen events as, after joining the gang attack on Ruiz, took back-to-back-to-back hits on his blindside - Hutchins, Joe Ramage, Gibson - to end his day in fourth place.
To start the season Joe Ramage missed out on finals through the first three events, but he followed that up with five in a row winning the Valentine's Day Massacre and, after a seventh at the Ides of March, three straight runner-up spots. Since then Ramage has made it to one final (11th Lobster Nationals) in the next nine weeks; his dismissal in New Orleans occurring after he battered Clayton three times before a pair of costly misses led to his demise.
That means Scott Hutchins' eyes will be wide open in his tenth final as the third place man in the standings will be eager to gain ground on the pair above him. Hutchins led the assault on Ruiz, survived a stall scare midway through the heat, and then went Mano-a-Mano for some time with Norm Gibson who, also was all out on Ruiz but also had a couple of minor scares with stalls and a situation where he became stuck, only to survive all of this and win his first heat of the year. It's a sixth final in seven weeks for Gibson who has two wins in that time and a runner-up finish.
Race Result
1. Norm Gibson
2. Scott Hutchins
3. Joe Ramage
4. Randy Corson
5. Darrell Andresen
6. John Ruiz
7. John McCrory
8. Will Muprhy
No comments:
Post a Comment