'The Bull Ring': Rickman-Thrash-Putnam

Columbus Speedway is back hopefully for good. Not haven seen SLMs for a long time, the old 60 plus year 'Bull ring' is still there with their bad racing. MSCCS $3k with 19 cars was a great race....... The track, for those who have not been there, has an out crop in Turn 2 for ramping off, but the corner that starts the back outside straight away wall, is your fear not to hit coming out of T2. In T3-T4 has a bern, hope I spelled that right, to ride that cushion around the outside wall high up, sometimes scraping the wall with sparks with the rear fin. The Turns are fairly banked, more in T3-T4, with the straight aways with a slight sage.....Hope I get the details right, no notes taken because I thought that DoD would do it.....The dash race with the top 8 put #212 Putnam on the pole, with #1 Thrash on the outside; with two heat 10 lap heat races......The feature: Putnam led the Pac slow and tight on the start with a very late start cone giving the outside an equal jump on the front straightway, very tight rules. Putnam led for a few laps but Trash over taken him with both in traffic swapping up. Three Cautions: laps 32-35 in this 40 lapper. Car spun in T4, Putnam got turned around in T3-T4 in a Pac, and a second spin out in T4. Four starts with the same two up front with Putnam on the pole every time, with most wanting the outside lane to head into T1-T2. On the last (re)start, Thrash cut off Putnam deep low in T1, forcing the two to slide wide in T2, allowing Hanger to come in low, but the famous 'Flying Brian' did his trick, came down and around Hanger from outside and from high up taking the lead from the three, leaving them three to battle it out of T2. With the five laps to go, it was Hanger 4th, 'The Chattanooga Legend' #5 R. Johnson making 5th, and R. Rickman holding the 6th spot........602 winner was Ryan King #66 from Alabama....Notes: There was no one lane track, everybody used the bottom to the top, and no runaways. Rickman and Thrash mostly stayed mid to high, but Putnam stayed mostly on the bottom. Great in traffic exchanges and thrills.........I hope the Bull Ring keeps this kind of racing history going.