TOP 11 COUNTDOWN – BLAINE ROCHA
By Kevin Peters
At the current midpoint of the season, here is a countdown of the top 11 in the Spears Southwest Tour Series Point Standings. Today we begin with Blaine Rocha from Oakdale, CA. Blaine sits 11th in points, 115 markers out of first place after four point events and the 2015 Winter Showdown. Blaine moved from Strmiska Racing, where he had 2 top 5 and 3 top 10 finishes in 6 starts in 2014, to NTS Motorsports. He began the season with the goal of competing for this year’s championship.
The season started strong for the 21 Team at the $25,000 to win 2015 Winter Showdown at Kern County Raceway. After qualifying 8th, of the 52 teams present, Blaine ran 4th in his qualifying heat race and finished the 250 lap special event in the 4th position. That was the highest finishing “Tour” legal car in the event. The point season got off to a rocky start with 3 consecutive DNF’s at Madera Speedway, Kern County Raceway and Stockton 99 Speedway, despite qualifying in the top 8 at each event. Finally, at Irwindale Speedway, Blaine was able to turn it around and finish 6th after leading laps early in the race. “We haven’t had the luck we have been hoping for, but we have always been one of the best cars”, Blaine stated in regards to their mid-season standings. That was also the case when Blaine and the NTS Motorsports Team attended the Summer Showdown at Evergreen Speedway in Monroe WA, a companion event to the Winter Showdown. On that day Blaine was the fastest of the “Tour” legal cars, qualifying 13th out of 44, at a track he had never seen before. Following that effort, he finished 5th in his qualifying heat race to make the field for the big event. Unfortunately, Blaine’s race would last only 13 of the 200 scheduled laps, after being caught up in an early race incident that ended his day. “I’m hoping that in the second half of the season we can finish more races where we should finish them”, commented Blaine. The second half of the season will get underway at Redwood Acres Raceway in Eureka, CA on August 1st. It will be Blaine’s first trip to the Northern California facility where he hopes to score his first win of the season.
