Korbin Thomas has made an indelible stamp on stock car racing at PGARA Speedway the past decade and more often than not has celebrated his success with a checkered flag victory lap.
But there's one mark in particular he's not so proud of -- the one he left on the concrete wall when his car nailed it at PGARA in 2007, 92 laps into a 100-lap Katana Series race he was leading at the time.
The 39-year-old White Rock driver didn't let the painful memory of that crash so close to the end affect his return to Prince George for another night at the races Saturday. He picked his spots carefully, stayed out of trouble, and won the ASA Mr. Quick Lube/White Spruce Enterprises 100.
"This track has always been really good to us, and it's also been really bad to us," Thomas laughed.
"I hit the wall pretty hard in 2007 and ended up having to saw the front [of his car] off. It was a lot better night [Saturday]. We had a great car and the crew worked on it all day long and finally decided what to put on it for the main event, and it was awesome."
Pavement repair earlier this week made the PGARA asphalt faster than ever for Thomas and he he started the night by breaking Penticton racer Mark Berriau's two-year-old track record with a 16.521-second qualifying lap.
In front of about 2,000 spectators, the top 10 cars in qualifying began the 100-lap feature on an inverted starting grid, with the slowest of the 10 at the front and fastest in the middle of the 17-car field. Thomas grabbed the lead at Lap 64, off a restart, when he got the jump on second-place finisher Warren Bergman, the leader from the start of the race to that point.
"We had our shot on the high side and it's nice on the restart because the pass is half made for you, so if you've got anything, it's a great opportunity to do it," said Thomas. "Warren raced me really clean and we were able to hold onto the second groove and make it stick.
"It's nice when you can pull away from the rest of everybody, but when you can't it's absolutely nerve-wracking, and when you know there's only a few laps left you can't wait for the white flag."
In his first hometown race is several years, Bergman, 67, was feeling the heat of seeing all that traffic in his rearview mirrors but refused to wilt His corner bobble with Logan Jewell at Lap 45 could have proved disastrous but it was Jewell who came out of it worse for wear when he spin out to produced the first caution flag, forcing him to the back of the pack.
"It was seniors' abuse day today," quipped Bergman. "When you're racing with guys like Korbin Thomas and Mark Berriau and you finish second. I can't believe it. Pinch me, am I dreaming?"
Bergman admits he's done every little racing lately, compared to his glory days of the late 1990s when he ran hobby stocks in the Prince George Auto Racing Association. With no sponsorship and a borrowed crew chief (Shane Harding) helping him fine-tune his Chevy Impala, Bergman's saving grace came at Lap 80, after a bad restart had dropped him down to fifth. Bergman was allowed to move back up to second when Matt Stephenson spun before one lap was complete after the restart and kept close to Thomas when racing resumed.
Bergman missed the first race of the ASA OK Tire Sportsman Series in Vernon but ran in Williams Lake three weeks ago and says his podium result might encourage him to enter the next three races in Quesnel, Agassiz and Vernon.
Trevor Adelman of Quesnel was third. Adelman, 27, lost the use of his legs nine years ago when he broke his back in a car accident but his disability obviously doesn't keep him from achieving his racing goals.
"My guys worked really hard to get me good race car and it's starting to pay off," said Adelman. "This series is so competitive, it's tough to get these kind of finishes and we're proud of it.
"It's just a basic setup [with hand controls for brakes and gas]. It's just what I'm used to driving, I've been driving like this as long as I was driving with my feet."
Matt Stephenson of Kaleden, who won the first two ASA feature races this year, spun out a couple times after threatening to take a run at the leaders and finished ninth. Dave Olson of Quesnel was fifth, while Prince George drivers Bob Williams and Sheldon Mayert were eighth and 13th respectively. Jewell placed 12th. Williams won the 12-lap A-heat, while Joe Cornett-Ching of Summerland was the B-heat winner.
Chris Arronge captured PGARA's 32-lap Richmond Steel street stock main event, while Nathan Linfitt was a runaway winner in the 20-lap Admiral Roofing mini stock feature.
.png;w=120;h=80;mode=crop)
