Dale Lamborn was pleased with not only his finish but how the West Coast cars represented the supermodified racing community in Concord, N.C. at the first-ever East-West Supermodified Shootout at Concord Motorsports Park in Concord.
With a starting position of 12th out of 34 cars starting the main event, Lamborn said he began the race a bit conservatively.
"There was so much carnage out there, I drove it conservatively just to be on the safe side," Lamborn said.
Much of the carnage was produced by Martin McKeefery, a fellow Supermodified Racing Association driver, who had something break on the car and ran on top of the wall in turn 3 on the start and disintigrated much of the foam wall.
Lamborn stayed consistent in the positions of 10-12 through the first half of the race. After a caution on lap 27, he began to make a move to the front.
"I didn't make my move early enough," he said. "We ran 33 gallons of fuel, which is more than 200 pounds and the car really didn't handle well.
"After a good run of about 15 laps, it ran great and I was able to stay out of the crap. I just didn't do it quickly enough.
"But it was a good finish and great work by my crew. They did a fantastic job."
Lamborn and fellow SMRA drivers were concerned with parity of the cars between the East and West coasts.
"The West Coast cars are more sophisticated," Lamborn said. "But overall they were a lot closer than we first expected. We were equally spread out in qualifying and in the finish.
"A West Coast car won (A.J. Russell of Fresno, Calif.), I finished sixth and there were two other cars in the top-20. And we were second, third and seventh-fast in qualifying."
Ernie Coppo and Jim Birges, both of California, finished 15th and 18th respectively. Bobby Dalton, also of California, broke the front end and went out on lap 8. Jim Pasquin of Washington crashed out in the consolation race earlier in the day.
Lamborn had actually finished fourth in the main event. However, he and the No. 46 car of Joey Payne each were penalized two positions for jumping the restart on lap 30.
"We did put on a good show and we heard from a lot of fans who said they liked us and how fun this race was," Lamborn added. "The East Coast guys do run hard, and the West Coast cars did give the fans a good show."