Dirt Cup Champ Barnes Letting History Sink In
Andrew Kunas
ALGER, Wash. - Jayme Barnes stood outside his race trailer in the very early hours Sunday morning. He was told and asked: “Local drivers to win Dirt Cup; Fontes, Burrow, Kahne and Barnes. How does that sound?”
Barnes was taken aback for a moment, then finally responded in an unusually soft voice.
“That sounds good,” the new Jim Raper Memorial Dirt Cup champion, usually a little cocky, said humbly about what he had just accomplished.
He was letting it all sink in. He drove the race of his life and made Skagit Speedway history Saturday, becoming just the fourth Washington driver in 37 years to win Skagit’s crown jewel event. He put himself in exclusive company, the few Evergreen State drivers who won an event long dominated by out-of-state drivers, especially from California, which has won 24 Dirt Cups.
What was even more special for the Everett driver and the local fans of more than 6,000 who were on hand at Skagit Speedway on Saturday was Jayme’s victory coming in local equipment, his own in this case. While fans were thrilled with future NASCAR superstar Kasey Kahne’s victories in 2002 and 2003, his first win came in a car from the eastern part of the country and the next came in a car based in California. The last time a local driver won in local equipment was Bobby Burrow’s still popular victory in 1992. The only other Washington driver to win the Dirt Cup was Ross Fontes, who won the inaugural event in 1972 when it was a three-track, three-night points deal.
“I wanted to be the first one since Burrow so bad,” said Barnes, still showing off the big check for $25,000 handed to him by track owner Steve Beitler. “We’ve got some of the best drivers and cars in the country here. It makes it so tough, so it feels so good.”
Barnes started the 40-lap Dirt Cup Race of Champions on the outside front row, with former NASCAR prospect Tyler Walker, out of Los Angeles, inside of him. Walker had landed the high-profile SC Motorsports ride with a lot of big sponsorship behind it during the last off-season.
Small-time and quite possibly inferior equipment up against Big Money.
Walker took the lead immediately on the start but Barnes kept pace, sometimes flying around the high side in the high-banked turns of the bullring that is Skagit Speedway. On a track that is as small as Skagit, one might feel Barnes is crazy once they hear him admit that he almost never lifted the gas pedal during that race.
On lap 12, as they approached traffic, Barnes passed Walker in turns one and two, sending the crowd into a frenzy. Walker didn’t go quietly, passing him right back in the same fashion on the other end of the track. Coming out of turn two on lap 13, Barnes got Walker again as most of the fans were on the edge of their seats. Walker stormed back as they ran down the back stretch and into turns three and four.
Barnes, coming out of turn four, made the move of the race, and his career.
Coming up very fast on two slower cars as he rounded turns three and four on that fateful lap, Barnes saw the space between those two slow cars that were racing for position. At the same time he realized he was catching those two cars so fast he was going to crash into them if he didn’t do something crazy, and real quick.
Diving down from the top of the banking exiting turn four, Barnes kept the pedal to the metal and split the two lapped cars, with so little room to spare you couldn’t slip a piece of paper in on either side.
The Skagit Speedway crowd just simply loses it. So do announcers, officials, and members of the media.
Barnes motored away as the space between the lapped cars closes, momentarily trapping Walker behind them. The checkered flag was still 27 laps away, but everyone knew, deep down, that no one was going to catch Jayme Barnes now.
“I had no choice but to go for it,” Barnes said about his move between the lapped cars. “If I had let up off the gas pedal a little, I would’ve crashed into them because they were closing up. I just drove through.”
Barnes was so fast in the Dirt Cup Race of Champions, no one was even close to him in lap times. He turned the fastest lap of the race, 11.698 seconds on the 28th circuit around the 3/10-mile, high-banked clay oval. The fastest lap anyone else turned was a 12.098 seconds.
The red flag flew with 24 laps down and when track announcer Kelly Hart asked the crowd what they thought, they roared their approval, and this with Barnes still needing to run around the track 16 more times to complete his historic run. Barnes, despite an overheating motor under the hood of his own No. 9 Don Ott-powered Eagle, endured a yellow flag and three more reds in a race that saw many cars torn up, only to motor away from the field again on every restart.
There was great racing going on throughout the field, but not for the lead as Barnes was never seriously threatened. No one could challenge his right foot.
As everyone knew they would, the happy fans roared when Barnes crosses the finish line under Kirby Hoyle’s checkered flag.
Many caution laps have been run, however. There’s concern he may be too light. Pushed to the scales, the crowd of 6,000 holds its collective breath.
He’s legal. It’s official. The fans cheer again.
Pushed to the front stretch, Barnes climbed out of his car to be greeted by quite possibly the happiest Dirt Cup crowd since 1992. He’s $25,000 richer and sprint car racing is suddenly a little more affordable for him, but that didn’t matter as much as standing in front of his home state crowd as the Dirt Cup champion and being on the podium with the big trophy.
Mission accomplished. Racing history made.
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