Tonight’s field was strengthened with the appearance of Charlie “The Edge” Venegas and fellow Californians “Krazy” Kelly Kerrigan and Eddie Martinez, who due to travel problems unfortunately missed the last round.

The big money winner at Dawson Creek, Shawn “Mad Dog” McConnell is still only 5th in the Series overall therefore missed out on a Heat 1 appearance which saw Venegas start from the favoured inside gate position and never looked back as he won from Kerrigan who held off a 4-lap challenge from both James “Demolition” Mann and Anthony “British Bulldog” Barlow.

Heat 2 was McConnell’s first appearance when the race was stopped as Eddie Martinez didn’t make it to the 1st turn and was placed on the handicap line for the re-run when McConnell took an awarded win after the race was stopped on the last lap when David “Victor” Meldrum spun out taking Eddie Martinez out as well; 2 starts for the likeable Martinez and two visits face down on the ice was not the kind of start he wanted but fortunately neither man nor machine was injured.

In the 2nd group of qualifying heats, incidentally an all US race or more accurately the battle of the Californians, turned out to be the best race of the night by far as once again Venegas had drawn the inside gate position. However McConnell starting on the outside gate 4 was not spooked and by the end of the 2nd lap had got into a position where he could challenge Venegas and on lap 3 executed a most breathtaking brilliant inside pass off the 2nd turn and down the back straight for a superb second qualifying heat win and leaving Venegas in 2nd place ahead of Krazy Kelly Kerrigan.

Barlow must have been watching that race as in the very next heat he also made a win from the outside gate and in the process secured a place on the front row in the Main Final to his 2nd win of the qualifiers and thus secure his place in the Main Final, while Mann held off the challenge of Warburton for 2nd place.

In the Last Chance Kerrigan on the middle of the Front Row popped out of the gate ad was never in real danger from either Mann or Martinez and it was those 3 who joined the Main Final on the Back Row as McConnell had gate 1 on the Front row inside Charlie Venegas and Anthony Barlow.

Venegas missed the gate and chased Barlow hard down the back straight and was somewhat hard as he t-boned Barlow on the middle of the 3rd / 4th turn and with the race being stopped was put on the very back handicap line for the re-run.

In the re-run it was McConnell who looked a Winner all the way as Barlow maintained 2nd place throughout with fellow Brit Mann picking up the 3rd rostrum place as the best Venegas could do was to come through to 4th place by the end of 6 laps (it was actually 7 as the Start Marshal Neil miscounted!) which meant that at the end of a great nights racing Barlow picked up 2 more Championship points than Venegas and is now just 9 points behind the Leader whilst McConnell moves up into 4th place, a tremendous achievement considering he has only competed in 5 of the 10 Rounds held so far and is now 14 points adrift of 3rd place James Mann.

The final 2 Meetings of the 2009 Series take place in Wenatchee, Washington next weekend and the battle for the top 5 positions continues right to the end.

With Frank Felder, 3rd in the Everett, WA meeting at the very start of the Series lining up, the regular Series Riders were expecting a fight, none more so than Nathan “The Hippy” Siegel.

In fact it was as early as the first lap of the 1st Heat that Siegel suffered his first setback of the night as approaching the 3rd turn at speed he spun out, went across the carpet and was excluded as the race continued with Felder picking up the win from Quad rookies, Ben Warburton and Johnny Kerr.

Heat 2 saw Anthony Barlow beat James Mann in a tight tussle which resulted in Mann being deducted a point for touching the carpet, while top local Racer, Ryan Cutler got a valuable 3rd place.

In the next Heat Florida’s Chris “Bomber” Hall made a lightening start to win while Meldrum riding his Quad with an engine that was only re-built on the morning of the Meeting held off Washington’s Nicole Larson for 2 points.

In the first of the 2nd group of qualifying races, James Mann rode the race of his life to win, although once again he was deducted a point for touching the carpet as indeed was Nathan Siegel who actually went over the finish line on just one wheel to claim 2nd place before ending up underneath his Quad 5 jus metres further on. Miraculously he escaped injury although his bike suffered a broken front wheel spindle.

Hall held off the challenge of Felder in Heat 5 whilst Johnny Kerr showed the tremendous strides he has made lately to take a creditable 3rd place.

In the final qualifying Heat Barlow made no mistake and got his second 3 points of the night in the Quads Division as he beat the local Honda sponsored Ryan Cutler into 2nd place with Meldrum in 3rd place a result which meant a place for both on the Front Row in the Last Chance alongside Mann.

The back row for the Last Chance comprised of Warburton, Kerr and Larson, as surprisingly the Series Leader could not even make the Last Chance.

Once again it was Kerr who rode the best as he came from the Back Row to take 3rd place in the re-run, after Warburton suffered a tumble at the first attempt, and by doing so made the Main Final along with Meldrum and Mann to join Barlow, Hall and Felder.

Indeed it was the Front Row starters of the Quad Main who took the Podium places with Barlow winning and in the process getting a full house of 16 points for the second time in as many weeks, closely followed by Chris Hall and Frank Felder.

Heat 1: Venegas 3, Kerrigan 2, Mann 1, Barlow 0
Heat 2: McConnell 3, Martinez 2, Warburton 0, Meldrum fx
Heat 3: McConnell 3, Venegas 2, Kerrigan 1, Martinez 0
Heat 4: Barlow 3, Mann 2, Warburton 1, Barlow 0

Points for the night:  McConnell 16, Barlow 10, Venegas 8, Mann 8, Kerrigan 5, Warburton 2, Meldrum 0.

Points for the night: Barlow 16, Hall 13, Felder 10, Meldrum 6, Mann 4, Kerr 4, Cutler 3, Larson 2, Warburton 2, Siegel 1.