Caddell gets his first Portland win. - Portland April 23, 2006

Right from the start this race was a nail biter. Andrew Caddell and Gary Bockman made up the front row. Running without the chicane, Caddell and Bockman appeared to get a small jump at the drop of the green flag, but they ran side by side all way to turn four creating a huge draft which made Ken Sutherland, who started third, look like he had nitrous. Ken shot inside just as they hit the braking zone, and they entered the corner 3-abreast. Amazingly, all three cars made it through without contact or tire smoke and Sutherland squeezed by to take the lead. Lap two was a repeat of the start with positions slightly altered, Caddell pulled outside Sutherland and Bockman received the benefit of a two car hole-punch into the wind. Bockman then proceeded to pull the exact same move that Sutherland pulled on the first lap. Again the cars ran 3-abreast into turn four, again there was no contact and nobody locked up brakes, but Bockman was the new leader followed by Caddell and Sutherland. On the next lap Caddell and Sutherland freight trained by Bockman and Caddell got his turn to lead. The first three laps were a snap shot of the entire race. The three front runners continued to swap positions almost every lap, sometimes several times a lap for the entire race. During the first portion of the race, Jess Heitman and Will Schrader were only a couple car lengths back of the leaders hanging onto the draft. So the top 5 cars were nose to tail at several points. But, Heitman blew his differential, and in doing so held Schrader up enough that Schrader lost the draft. For the rest of the race, Schrader worked hard to regain the draft, but he never managed to quite get close enough. About two laps from the finish, with Bockman leading, Caddell and Sutherland ducked to the inside heading into turn four. Caddell got by, but Sutherland found himself pinned to the inside of the corner bouncing off the inside curbing. This slowed him enough that Caddell and Bockman were able to create a few car lengths gap. It appeared that Bockman had positioned himself perfectly for the win. In second place, on the final lap he was able to draft up on Caddell and make the pass for the lead as the cars entered turn 4. But Caddell got a great run off of turn seven and managed to get to the outside of Bockman just as the cars entered the back stretch. Caddell completed the pass as the cars entered turn ten and went on to claim his first Portland victory. The margin of victory was 0.094 secs, about 1/2 a car length. Congratulations Andrew.

finishing order:

Pos No. Name Laps Total Tm Diff Best Tm In Lap Best Spd (Mph)

1 88 ANDREW CADELL 21 29:34.534 1:23.883 8 82.315
2 89 GARY J BOCKMAN 21 29:34.628 0.094 1:23.699 4 82.496
3 94 KEN SUTHERLAND 21 29:35.087 0.553 1:23.813 8 82.383
4 41 WILL SCHRADER 21 29:40.696 6.162 1:24.127 4 82.076
5 85 MARK POWELL 21 29:52.616 18.082 1:24.371 4 81.839
6 26 BRIAN TOWEY 21 29:54.495 19.961 1:24.382 3 81.828
7 81 KEVIN BRINKLEY 21 29:54.725 20.191 1:24.334 4 81.874
8 02 JOHN PORTELLO 21 30:09.919 35.385 1:25.290 3 80.957
9 66 FENN BOURLAND 21 30:16.553 42.019 1:24.894 5 81.334
10 06 DOUGLAS JENNINGS 21 30:23.473 48.939 1:24.915 4 81.314
11 8 JOHN HEINSMA 21 30:25.726 51.192 1:26.240 18 80.065
12 12 BRIAN RICHARDS 21 30:39.075 1:04.54 1:24.449 3 81.763
13 9 GEOFF ODOMS 21 30:39.501 1:04.96 1:26.608 19 79.725
14 93 JAMES W TILLEY 21 30:39.838 1:05.30 1:26.385 7 79.931
15 79 PATRICK NEWTON 21 30:42.757 1:08.22 1:26.326 7 79.985
16 01 JIM GRAFFY 20 29:41.794 1 Lap 1:28.056 5 78.414
17 71 CHUCK HALL 14 20:17.050 7 Laps 1:25.937 4 80.347
18 47 JESS W HEITMAN 5 7:04.522 16 Laps 1:23.764 4 82.432
19 80 GEOFF COCHRAN 3 4:50.402 18 Laps 1:27.847 1 78.600