Sanchez, Howard, Lunsford Win In CMRA Opener At Oak Hill

Sanchez, Howard, Lunsford Win In CMRA Opener At Oak Hill

© 2004, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

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Copyright 2004, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

2004 CMRA Championship Series
Round one
Oak Hill Raceway
Henderson, Texas February 21-22

By Shan Moore

Michael Sanchez, Ty Howard and Ronnie Lunsford were the big money winners at the opening round of the 2004 CMRA Championship Road Racing Series held at Oak Hill Raceway near Henderson, Texas this weekend. Sanchez, sporting a Number One on his Shogun-backed Suzuki which he earned for being the top CMRA rider in 2003, claimed sprint wins in the A Superstock Expert, B Superstock Expert, A Superbike Expert, B Superbike Expert and C Superbike Expert divisions and was top money winner in the Red River Challenge event held on Saturday.

Howard made a triumphant return to CMRA racing action by winning the C Superstock Expert and the Formula 1 Expert races, both purse-paying events. Lunsford claimed the winners-share of the money in the Heavyweight Twins Expert race.

The event drew 582 entries for the CMRA, which has returned to independent status after four years of affiliation with the CCS. The CMRA begins the year with one of the strongest purse and contingency programs in club history.

In the Pace American Trailer Red River Challenge Race, held on Saturday, Sanchez took over where he left off last year by taking a comfortable win and grabbed $500 of the $1500 purse for the effort. Sanchez was pressured early on by Logan Young and Heath Small, but two off-track excursions by Small left the Yamaha rider in ninth overall. Ty Howard’s late challenge fell short when he ran out of gas after moving into second position with two laps to go.

Saturday’s 3-hour Mini Endurance event was a highly anticipated event, mainly due to a complete restructuring of the classes for the new season. Most insiders were interested in seeing how the classes would shake out after the first event. In some cases, bikes that had never been eligible in the mini divisions before were now being allowed and this created a couple of new and unique entries at the Oak Hill event.

Sum Of All Parts Racing, riding an RS-framed XR250 4-stroke, claimed the endurance win by just over a minute in front of Team OZ Racing, with last year’s dominate team, Team K&N , finishing third after crashing during the first hour.

“I think the guys on the XR250 showed that the 80s can be challenged now and it was still close at the end of the race,” said 2003 CMRA Board member, Bryan Norton, who was mainly responsible for structuring the new classes. “We will see how it works out for a 6-hour event–if they will hold up, but looking through all of the classes, there was good racing all day and it seemed to be really evenly matched. Nobody walked away from anybody and that’s what we were looking for. I think that everybody who came had a great time. The whole point is that at the end of the year, we will look at it again and make changes if we need to.”

Notable performances were also turned in by Jason Pirtle and Joe Browning, who each won four non-money races and Scott Levine, who won two. Tyler McDonald won the 125cc GP and Formula 4 races.

The second round of the CMRA Championship Series will be held at Texas World Speedway in College Station, Texas on March 13-14 and will feature a 5-hour Big Bike Endurance race along with sprint action.


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