[dirtnonwingfan]

Kevin Thomas Jr. in the 17RW won the second night of the Richard Griffin Classic at Southern New Mexico Speedway in Las Cruces. He won his heat and finished third in his qualifier, which gave him a 4th place starting spot in the feature. He quickly took the lead and withstood several restarts, mainly due to what appeared to be an attempt by Aaron Reutzel to run into as much of the field as he could. The last car Reutzel hit was Dave Darland, who was running 3rd at the time but had to restart at the rear. 2nd was Ryan Bernal from 6th, 3rd John Carney II from 18th, 4th Reutzel from 2nd, 5th Brady Bacon from 11th, 6th C.J. Leary from 5th (another who had contact with Reutzel) and I believe Casey Shuman from 14th. Altogether a good, but again brisk, night. It is a little hard to believe that only 24 cars would show up for a 360 race which advertised a total purse of $50,000 with $10,000 to Saturday night's winner. Harder to believe is the really sparse crowds, with probably fewer than 100 last night (races over at 11:45 and temperature 36) or I think fewer than 200 tonight (races over at 11:15 and temp in high 40s). Compare this to the large crowd at the Kokomo Klash, where I had the temperature at 39 at midnight. Indiana has serious sprint car fans, not to be deterred by a brisk evening. Best fans in the country.