By Bill Poehler -
Sunset Speedway Park - Banks, Oregon
Saturday August 31, 2008
Doug Walters always loved a race.
The co-owner and biggest booster of Sunset Speedway died in a highway accident Thursday night, but the racers and his friends knew that he would have wanted them to continue to race.
They showed up Saturday night at the 1/4-mile clay oval at the track in Banks, doing four-wide salutes before nearly every race in tribute to the man who guided the track into its current form as a premier raceway.
Scott Puncochar of Hillsboro, who got his first late model ride a few years ago in a Walters-owned car, won the 40-lap A-Main event in the Coors Light Crate Engine Late Model class.
Every driver in the field, though, could attribute at least part of their driving career to the larger-than-life but down-to-earth Walters.
Puncochar led every lap in the main event and held off Branden Lindberg of Monroe, Wash., for his second victory of the season. The Schram brothers, Jerry and Jimmy, finished third and fourth.
Greg Walters, Doug's son, placed fifth. In the late 1990s, Doug gave up his decades-long driving career to focus on his son's budding racing career, and Greg Walters repaid his father's faith with three driver's championships in the past three seasons.
Eric Sayre finished sixth with Jeff Brookshire in seventh, Jeremy Schram in eighth, Billy Workman, Jr., in ninth and Steve Moore in tenth.
Rounding out the field were Jeff Biffle, Steve Suckow, Willie Sutton, Jack Marontate, Jim Clair and Kevin Rodgers.
Clair also won the B-Main event with Suckow, Marontate and Sutton gaining the final transfer spots. Sprint car driver Pat Canfield finished fifth filling in for Jason Johnson, Malcolm Lindberg was sixth and Joel Pagel rounded out the main event.
Sayre set fast time in qualifying; Moore won the trophy dash; and Greg Walters, Branden Lindberg and Marontate won the heat races.
The night was a tribute to Walters, who only wanted to give his family and friends a nice, fair place to race.
God Bless 67.