Mike Doss Sets Track Record Takes Home Trophy
A Beautiful but hot day at the lake greeted race fans and competitors at Lakeport Speedway. A total of 15 late models were in attendance for the 10th event for the Airport Auto Broker late models. Qualifying is becoming an event of its own, 10 out of 15 late models qualified within a ½ second of each other. And 6 drivers turned their personal best time of the season.
Mike Doss again not only set fast time, he broke the track record with a time of 11.711. He was followed by Kevin Ostern 11.751, Mike Lovell 11.795, Forrest Kuecker 11.929 and Jeremy Hopkins 11.969. Doss took home the big trophy for his second win of the season. He also collected winnings from the bonus challenge, offered by Pacific Auto Body, because he started in the rear of the field.
Kevin Ostern finished 2nd after tangling with Cory James on lap 29 and being sent to the back. This was a good point’s night for Ostern; one more green flag start clinches the championship. Ostern also won the fast dash; his first one of the season. Following Ostern to the checkered was Hopkins, Kuecker, Doss, James and Eric Graham.
Allen Gibney won the slow dash making this his 3rd dash win of the season. Following Gibney to the checkered was, Eric Williamson, Mike Bourbon, Myles Anderson, Rod Skidmore and Jimmy Stillman.
Nitro Noel McCormack joined us minutes before the main event started, driving a blue and white #93 sponsored by Lake County Fair. Because he didn’t qualify, he started in the rear behind Doss and still managed to pull off a 3rd place finish.
Forrest Kuecker landed a 4th place finish, making this his 5th top 5 finish for the year. He started the race in 9th position and held 2nd place for 28 laps. Forrest is one of our most consistent drivers.
Kevin Gifford landed 5th. This is his 1st top 5 finish for the season and only his 2nd top 10. He has finally gotten his car dialed in and we are looking forward to seeing more of him in the front of the pack.
Jimmy Stillman, who was fighting a broken locker all night, finished up a respectable 6th. By driving smart and keeping his fenders straight, he is currently 
only 6 points out of 2nd place for championship point’s standings.
On a side note, AABLM’s intern Caity, after spending the season watching the AABLM action, got her first taste of a circle track and drove in the Jammer division. Thanks to David Furia, the Jammer division has become a great division to start in. Caity’s crew was intern Terra and Webmaster Curtis. Caity would like to say thanks to all the AABLM drivers for their encouragement and a special thanks to Rod Skidmore for building the Jammer for her, and Curtis Cook for spending his B-day helping at the track.
See you at the track
Bob Cook
There will be a Friday Practice this weekend (08-07-09) @ Lakeport Speedway 4:00pm to 8:00pm
Also, Franks Radios will be @ Lakeport Speedway on Saturday (08-08-09) for radio repair and service. This is a good opportunity to get your radios repaired or tuned-up and maybe even upgrade the ones you have. Please stop by this Saturday and talk to Franks Radios and ask them your question and say thanks for coming.
See you at track
Bob Cook
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
