From the Yuma Sun: 66-year-old Corning outsmarts Pro-Stock field at Cocopah Speedway
arry Corning isn't a chip off the ‘ol block.
That's because he IS the ol' block.
The 66-year-old racing veteran from San Diego brought a new car to Cocopah Speedway to test for his son during Saturday night's Round 4 of the Cocopah Racing Series, put his experience to work, and drove off with the feature event win in the Pro-Stock Division.
“The car did most of it,” explained Corning afterward. “I haven't lost everything. This is my 45th year driving so you start using this after a while,” he said, pointing to his head.
“You don't use any natural talent, you just start using (your head) and saying, ‘Well, if I do this and do this, then they are going to have to try to beat me.'”
Corning started from the pole of the eight-car feature event and led every lap. It was the first night of racing on the new clay recently added to the racing surface, and Corning said the rough conditions partially contributed to his win.
“I would have hated to start farther back. The track was just way too rough. There was one smooth line around it and if you got out of that line, boy it was, ‘Hold on!'
“I stayed on the bottom and if anybody was going to beat me, they were going to have to go through them holes, and I didn't figure they were going to go through them.”
Corning said his trip to the track Saturday night was meant to put laps on a new car he finished building on Friday. He built the car for his son, Mike, who now lives in Iowa and is known for his own racing talent and success, to drive in the upcoming two-day Turkey Classic on Nov. 25 and 26 at Cocopah Speedway.
“That's the reason we wanted to run it tonight, to get a few laps on it, find out what the bad things are,” said Corning.
Judging by the results, the list of “bad things” is a short one.
Corning's trip to victory lane ended the two-race win streak put together by Yuma's Ryan Hancock, who settled for third place in Saturday's feature. Second place went to Brawley's Brent Ashurst, with Yuma's Brett Simala finishing fourth and Steve Jonas, from San Diego, rounding out the top five.
Corning and Simala won the two preliminary division heat races.
In other racing action Saturday night Imperial's Lance Mari notched his second IMCA Modified Division feature event win of the season; Yuma's Adolfo Noriega made it two Street Stock Division feature event wins in a row; and Yuma's Oscar Duarte won his first Factory Stock Division feature event of the season.
Mari, like Corning, said the track conditions played a role in his feature event win, but from a different perspective. Mari said he tried to run in the bottom line, like Corning, but it wasn't working out for him because, “I was about two clicks of an adjustment off on the bottom.”
That meant trying the top line, which he had tried earlier, “but it seemed a little choppy. I went up there a couple of times, and I didn't trust it.
“So I figured it was either going to go in the fence or go forward and luckily enough it went forward.”
The top line worked so well that he was able to get past Yuma's Kent Rosevear, who, in a new car, was running the bottom line and putting distance between himself and the field.
“I had to go to the top because it was the only thing I had,” said Mari. “The track wasn't easy on a whole lot of folks, so we just did what we could.”
His Imperial Valley neighbor, Duane Rogers, finished second, Rosevear settled for third, Holtville's Chris Toth was fourth and Yuma's Johnny Swenson finished fifth.
The heat race wins went to Swenson and Yuma's Jared Hall.
Noriega said his drive to victory lane in the Street Stock feature event “was a tough win,” also alluding to the track conditions.
“The car's setup was really good and when the track allowed us the car was fast and predictable,” said Noriega. “But when we got into those rough or loose dry patches, the car wanted to get away from me, so it was all I could do to keep it together.”
In what has become a Noriega trademark, the defending track champion started from inside the sixth row of the 15-car field and steadily made his way through traffic to get to the front.
Once there he found Yuma's Timmy Reese leading the pack and the two waged a bumper-to-bumper battle for a few laps, passing lapped cars in the process, before making contact while exiting Turn 2. After the contact Noriega was able to recover in time to take over the front position and never looked back while Reese, who appeared to suffer a flat tire, faded to eighth place.
Second place went to Yuma's Leonard Jones, Brawley's Sean Callens was third, Yuma's Scott Jeffery was fourth and Yuma's Joey Essary was fifth.
The heat race wins went to Brawley's Joey Teague and Reese.
Oddly enough, in the Factory Stock finale Duarte said he got signals from Mari, who was standing outside Turn 4, to move up and use the high line, which Mari said he was afraid to do initially in the Modified feature.
But the move worked out for Duarte who was able to take over the lead and pull away from the nine-car field to win by a sizable margin.
“After that yellow (flag) I moved up to the high side,” said Duarte. “Lance kept pointing for me go to up, so I went up and I just flat-footed it around the track.
“I was doing the best that I could, driving the heck out of that car. I just put it on the floor and didn't lift.”
Yuma's Steve Anthony finished second behind Duarte, Yuma's Jimmy Davy was third, Brawley's Amy Teague finished fourth and Yuma's Justin Jones was fifth.
The race also included a rollover between Turns 3 and 4 when defending champion Matthew Sharrar went for a wild ride, ending up on his roof, partially on top of the car driven by Jordan White. Neither driver was injured in the mishap, which also collected Rick Hibbard. None of the three was able to continue, however.
The heat race wins went to Duarte and Yuma's James Dupre
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