Victory in the rain-delayed 65th running of the Payless Little 500 sprint car race at Anderson Indiana went to Hoosier driver Jacob Wilson, but the crowd and fellow competitors definitely knew that the five California cars and drivers were in the house.
Defending MustSee Extreme Racing series champion and former CASA (California Asphalt Sprintcar Association) racer JoJo Helberg originally from Rohnert Park California won the coveted pole position with a four-lap average of 80.56 MPH. 2012 Indianapolis 500 competitor Bryan Clauson who was raised in Noblesville Indiana but was born in Sacramento started seventh, while 10-time USAC champion Tony Hunt of Lincoln California timed in eighth. Tim Barber from Sonoma California started 25th in Ted Finkenbinder’s Western Industrial X-Ray sprint car, with Dave Darland alongside in Earl Pierson’s Sacramento-based #14 sprint car.
The initial three-wide start of eleven rows for the Little 500 on Saturday night was delayed 38 minutes by rain and mist went awry when Jimmy Kite in Mike Blake’s sprint car slid exiting turn four, collided with the car of local racer Jimmy Sheets and forced Sheets into the outside concrete retaining wall. Sheets’ car overturned on the main stretch, which brought out the red flag to stop the race before a lap was even completed. During the Sheets cleanup, light rain began to fall again and after an hour, the persistent rain finally forced track owner Rick Dawson to postpone the race to Sunday night.
At 8 PM on Sunday night, following the exciting 2013 Indianapolis 500, the 32-car Little 500 field finally thundered under the starter’s green flag to begin the greatest challenge in sprint car racing- 500 laps of racing around the Anderson high-banked
Kevin TriplettMotorsports News