Cloverdale’s Clay Caturegli wins
When the sun went down over the Ukiah valley, the AABLM drivers slid into their Late Models and lined up for another Saturday night of octane injected 75 lap competition. After the dust finally settled it was Cloverdale’s Clay Caturegli, driving the black #45 sponsored by Fletcher Fabrication, Cloverdale Auto Parts, Eagle Tech and B & C Automotive, prepared by Tom Caturegli and family, who took the checkered flag.
The drivers and crew ignored the heat and put their best effort into setting fast time. Mike Doss qualified the fastest with his time of 12.699, followed by Mike Lovell with 12.730, Kevin Ostern 12.735, Trevor Cristiani 12.750, Allen Gibney and Clay Caturegli tied with a 12.762 rounding out the top 6, with barely 3 / 10ths of a second between the top 15.
The fast dash lined up according to a card draw, with Trevor Christiani starting on the pole and Doss on his outside, this is how they finished, with Christiani beating out Doss by a nose. Following closely were, Gibney, Caturegli, Lovell and Ostern.
The B dash also lined up by card draw, Ken Gifford pulled the ace putting him on the pole and Berndt Akerstrom on his right. Gifford took the checker, followed by Akerstrom, Rod Skidmore, Mike Bourbon, Myles Anderson and newcomer Keith Nelson of Ukiah.
20 Late Models qualified for the main event, making Ukiah Speedway the place to be. A 10 invert put Forrest Kuecker on the pole and Straka on his outside, followed by Eric Graham, Jeremy Hopkins, Caturegli and Gibney. Mike Doss, driving his 36x, accepted the bonus challenge and elected to start in the back. This bonus challenge was put up by Allen Gibney of Pacific Auto Body, who is giving $100 to the fast timer if they elect to 
start in the back, and still win the main event! Nobody won the challenge at the last race, so the pot rolled over to $200. Kuecker gabbed the lead on the start and lead the next 47 laps. Hopkins moved into 2nd on lap 30 and started putting pressure on Kuecker. On lap 48 Hopkins used the lap traffic to get around Kuecker, Caturegli followed Hopkins for 2nd. Hopkins, Caturegli and Kuecker were swerving in and out of lap tap traffic, Hopkins and Kuecker using the outside groove and Caturegli making the bottom work for him until lap 60.
The field was slowed numerous times with cautions, the one that stood out the most was the last caution on lap 60 which involved the lead cars. 
Hopkins and Kuecker got collected with lap traffic and ended a great run for both of them. Kuecker clocked one of the fastest laps during the main event with a 12.730. Caturegli skated through the crash and was in the lead when the red flag was thrown. On the restart, Caturegli got a good start and put a few car lengths on Ostern followed by 
Gibney, Doss, Lovell and Cory James. The point’s leader Ostern had a tire go down on the restart and started losing positions. With only 15 laps to go, he stayed on the track not to bring out any more yellows and Finished 10th, 2 laps down. By lap 62 Doss was in third and looking to claim the bonus challenge. The next dozen laps were caution free and Jim Stillman finished 6th, James finished 5th and Lovell finishing 4th was glad to get the monkey off his back and complete a race. Doss, unable gain any more position, finished 3rd and Gibney with another best finish of 2nd. Clay Caturegli “MR UKIAH” with his 2nd win this season, joins the elite group of Ostern & Graham in being multiple winners this season.
See You at the Track
Bob Cook
There will be no practice Friday at Ukiah Speedway. Instead, there will be an early
practice starting at noon on Saturday.
Problems have developed on the back end of the website. Most are un-noticeable, but the big glaring one is the inability to update the photo-gallery. To resolve this, the website will be switching servers. While the switch is underway aspects of the site may become unusable. The contact form will probably not work during the switch as well as some of the gallery.
The site may become unavailable at certain times so if you cannot connect to AABLM.com try AirportAutoBrokersLateModels.com and visa versa.
The switch should at most take a few days (but not likely). An update will be posted when all is done.
UPDATE: AABLM.com is having some serious issues and to most people it is inaccessible. AirportAutoBrokersLateModels.com is however currently running fine.
UPDATE 2: The main portion of the server switch is over. New DNS records are propagating through the interwebs. The site should be back up and running @ 100% by Sunday evening. (I would be able to finish Saturday but I promised someone I’d help them out on a jammer.)
Update 3: The Server Transition finished up on Sunday. There are still some errant bits & pieces flowing around, but the site as a whole is 100% operational. I’ll have the last races photo up as soon as possible.
~your humble webmaster
Hometown hero Wins
Hometown hero Derek Thorn wins the 21st annual Kelseyville Lumber – Deake Lyndall Memorial Race with the Airport Auto Brokers Late Models. Derek Thorn makes the 7th different winner of the AABLM 2009 Tour. AABLM has had 35 different drivers competing with us this year. As this is only the 2nd season for the AABLM, the series is growing fast and attracting talent.
Seventeen late models qualified for the Saturday evening main event, with Kevin Ostern setting a fast time of 11.803. He was followed by Mike Doss 11.808, Mike Lovell 11.917, Jeremy Hopkins 11.929 and Forrest Kuecker 11.998. Kuecker won the fast dash; followed by Doss, Joe Aiken, Hopkins, Ostern and Thorn. Charlie Collins won the slow dash; followed by Berndt Akerstrom, Eric Williamson, Blair Aiken, Mike Bourbon, Allen, and Myles Anderson of Fort Bragg CA.
Ostern pulled the 12 invert, and that put Williamson on the pole with Allen Gibney on his outside. Gibney, of Pacific Auto Body, put up a $100 challenge if fast timer Kevin Ostern would elect to start last and go for the win. Ostern took the challenge, and started at the back; but was unable to collect the $100, so the 
challenge will roll over to the next race. Williamson took the lead on the start and led the first 28 laps; he had a few car lengths on the field, so the battle was between Cory James and Kuecker for 2nd. Kuecker took over 2nd from James on lap 26, and 3 laps later he took the lead from Williamson. Hopkins and Doss were charging to the front and on lap 41 they both passed Kuecker with Hopkins taking the lead, Doss in 2nd. The race 
was stopped at lap 45 on yellow, and all the late models headed to the pits for a break so the fans could watch the Lakeport fire works show. The Speedway turned off the lights and driver and crew families came to the infield to watch the show. The drivers took the opportunity to do some tuning on their late models. The race resumed after the show. Hopkins restarted the field after collecting $200 for leading before the break. On lap 48, Hopkins and Doss were racing hard and 
collided, causing Hopkins to spin and sending 2 very fast late models to the back. That put Thorn into the lead followed by Ostern, Kuecker, Williamson and James in 5th. On the restart Thorn got a jump and Ostern had Kuecker all over him. By lap 52 Kuecker took 2nd from Ostern and once again Hopkins and Doss were charging back to the front. Thorn took the checker on lap 75 followed by Kuecker with his best finish with the AABLM, Point Leader Ostern, Williamson with his first top five and Doss coming up from the back to finish 5th. On the win, Derek Thorn was quoted, “Although I won the “Racing for a Cure Challenge” in 2004, I’m happy to get my first win with the AABLM series. I’m proud to win for ALS.”
See you at the Track
Bob Cook
