Quick Rick Brown speaks softly and carries a heavy right foot

A Main Event winner Rick Brown (right)

2nd place A Main Event Matt Hein (right)

3rd place A Main Event Andy Alberding (right)

Roseburg, Oregon - June 13 - Rick Brown again demonstrates why he is the only five time ASA/NSRA Champion by showing the “youngins” the quick way around the three-eights oval at Douglas County Speedway! Brown qualified fifth quick of the sixteen winged sprint cars with a 13.098. In a special Trophy Dash to honor the memory of Casey Diemert, Brown started second and promptly moved to the lead to take the win. In his heat race he started fourth and moved to second for the checkers.

Brown saved the best for the main event. With an eight car invert for the forty lap race Brown was positioned in fourth on the starting grid. With the “luck of the draw” of the eight car invert both Deaver cars sat on the front row with sixteen year old Austyn Anderson on the pole and Craig Deaver on the outside. At the drop of the green Anderson led the first lap but gave way to Deaver by lap two. Brown started in fourth and quickly dispensed with the #17 of Justin Mack moving into third by lap three. Hein had moved into fourth place getting around Andy Alberding, Jeff Montgomery, Cory Lockwood and Justin Mack who had started sliding backwards through the field. Deaver started to stretch out his lead over his team mate Anderson and the rest of the field until a caution was thrown on lap eleven for the #2 of Mitch Holte for a spin on the backstretch. Holte managed to keep the car running, never leaving the racing surface. The field was formed back up for a restart with Deaver leading.

On the restart Deaver held the lead but by lap seventeen Brown had moved past Anderson to take over second. A few laps later Matt Hein put Anderson back another spot to fourth. Lap twenty had the leader Deaver catching lapped traffic slowing him down allowing Brown to close the gap quickly. Hein had made repeated attempts to get around Brown after moving into third but was unsuccessful all night. On lap twenty-three Todd Coleman in the #44 was trailing heavy oil smoke but quickly moved to the outside pulling onto pit entrance road. Using lapped traffic to his advantage Brown took over the lead on lap twenty-seven with Hein following him moving Deaver back to third. Andy Alberding had been quietly working his way forward from his seventh starting spot taking over third on lap twenty-seven moving Deaver back to fourth. From there Brown started to pull away from Hein until a caution on lap thirty for the #51 of Jake Mann spinning in turn four. On the restart Brown got a nice jump on Hein to keep his lead. By lap thirty-seven Brown encountered heavy lapped traffic offering an opportunity for Hein to battle for first place. The crafty veteran Rick Brown is; he carved his way through the lapped traffic going high when necessary and diving down low given the choice to keep his lead spot. Not once did Brown give Hein the chance to swap places with him.

Brown took the checkers after forty invigorating laps leaving second to Hein and third to Alberding. Deaver held on to his fourth spot while Lockwood and Montgomery finished the same as they started; in fifth and sixth places respectfully. Mack had slid all the way back to seventh from his third starting spot, while Anderson starting second finished eighth the last car on the lead lap.

Rick Brown, a soft spoken man and one of few words simply said in the winners circle to the crowd , “Great race and thank you very much.”

In a tribute to Casey Diemert a special Casey Trophy Dash was run filled by four Roesburg, OR drivers. Casey, a native of Roseburg, Oregon, lost his life in a USAC Western Sprint Car practice session at Irwindale Speedway in March of 1999. At just age twenty-three he had amply demonstrated a tremendous talent in open wheel cars on both dirt and pavement. The 4a of Ray Douglas sat on the pole for this special Dash with Rick Brown outside, the second row was Andy Alberding and Matt Hein. Brown wasted no time taking the lead in turns one and two of the first lap all the way to the checkers four short laps later. Hein moved up from fourth to second. Douglas slipped back to third, Alberding back to fourth.

Casey Dash 4-wide tribute lap

A bizarre accident occurred during the running of the main event for the mini-stock class. A car went high in turn one losing control in the marbles. The car went off track into the retaining wall going up on it’s side sliding into the pit entrance with its throttle stuck open. The mini-stock impacted the #25z car and #33j car on pit road. There was minimal damage to both sprint cars, the #25z suffering more damage than the #33j. The mini-stock jumped the left rear wheel of the #25z and came to rest at the back end of the 33j. Thankfully, both sprint car crews were not servicing their cars at the time. There were no injuries to anyone including the driver of mini-stock car.