Torres untouchable at El Paso Speedway Park
EL PASO, Texas--The track at El Paso Speedway Park was as good as they come Friday night, May 29. There was high, there was low and the middle was amazing. Drivers could do anything on the track that they needed to, making for some of the best races of the season.
The night started with the 20-lap USRA B-Mod main event with twelve drivers arriving to do battle. After lap one it was all John Carney Sr. After seven laps Paddy Rush stepped up to the plate to make things interesting, but with an unusual caution on lap eight she would have to start outside Carney.
Carney pulled a good gap for the next few laps after the restart but with five laps to go the top three of Carney, Rush, and Mingo Jauregui were once again running nose to tail. Even with all the bumping and sliding, Carney won and led all but one lap. Rush and Jauregui battled hard and finished second and third, respectively, with Hector Prigione finishing fourth and Josue Saez finishing out the top five.
The second main event of the evening came in the form of 20 laps from the USRA Stock Cars. Ten of these rough and tough warriors showed up for the night’s festivities and, as usual, they did not disappoint. Michael Medina started inside pole with Todd Tovar to his outside. A notable from the heat race was Jaime Torres who came from all the way back in eighth to first to grab the win in the heat. Torres started outside row three for the main and was definitely a man to watch catch fire tonight.
At the drop of the green, Medina and Tovar fell into line but behind them things got dicey. Froats, Jason Josselyn and Torres went three wide into turn one to duke it out for third place. The first caution of the race came just after that pass by Torres as Tovar would get too high into turn three and smack the wall hard. That would be the end of the night for Tovar and we would go back to green with one lap in the books.
Medina took us back to green but Torres, who came all the way from sixth after one lap, took the lead from Medina coming out turn two and never looked back. With 12 laps to go, Torres had a seven-car-length lead when the #08 pulled off the track.
George LaRose now was running second but just like in the heats it becomes the Torres show with ten to go. Torres may have been up a few car lengths ahead at this point but back in third Robert Vega and Josselyn were battling like it was the championship fight. They ran side by side for almost an entire lap before Vega swung by and the outside with five to go and took third all the way to the finish.
With one to go, no one in the house could touch Torres. He pushed the last circuit around smooth as butter and drove his Burger Time/Mainstreet Motors machine all the way to victory lane. LaRose came across the line in second with Josselyn right on his tail for a solid third-place finish. Vega and Rudy Tarin III rounded out the top five.