Tully ninth, seventh in first Street Stock mains of 2007

Brian Tully finished ninth and seventh in the first Street Stock main events of the 2007 Perris Auto Speedway season February 24, and the Fallbrook driver also finished second in his heat race that night.

“I used patience,” Tully said. “I just basically picked them off and watched for people to make mistakes.”

The first Street Stocks race at Perris Auto Speedway was scheduled for February 10, but numerous accidents in other classes and the track’s 11:00 p.m. curfew caused the main event to be postponed until the beginning of the February 24 races. One of those crashes occurred in Tully’s Street Stocks heat race and removed Tully from the track for the rest of that heat.

A total of 23 Street Stocks began the first main event February 24. Tully began the 20-lap race as the final car in back. He spun in turn 4 during the first lap but recovered. He was 11th after a 16th-lap yellow flag and avoided two cars which spun in front of him on the 18th lap.

After the first main event, the Street Stocks returned to the track for the regularly scheduled heat races. Tully started the six-lap heat race on the outside of the third row and was third after the first lap. In the second lap Aaron Knox spun, recovering before a yellow flag was thrown but losing the second position to Tully. Tully finished the heat race behind winner Ricky Bobby, who captured the race in 2:21.91.

By the end of the heat race Tully was dealing with lapped cars. “We were really hauling,” he said.

Tully began the second 20-lap main event on the inside of the second row. Contact with Ronnie Everhart gave Tully a flat right front tire, and he fell to sixth at the end of the first lap. A third-lap yellow flag allowed Tully to make a trip into the pit work area, where Brandon Davis and Noah Bishop changed the tire. Tully returned to the track in the back of the pack and began working his way towards higher positions.

Tully was 11th after an eighth-lap red flag stoppage, and after contact with the far straightaway wall cost Knox his third-place spot along with part of his car Tully moved into tenth. He avoided a turn four spin on the restart of that lap, but that spin caused another yellow flag and on the restart Jim Pierce took over tenth place at Tully’s expense.

On the 19th lap Tully avoided another multi-car incident in front of him. “There were four cars, one low and one high, and I went through the middle,” he said.

Tully was placed eighth on the restart and gained his final spot when Rich Lopp spun on the restart but recovered without causing a yellow flag.

“Passed a lot of cars,” Tully said.

Kenny Mann won both Street Stocks main events. “Kenny Mann helped me,” Tully said.

Tully was losing his harmonic balancer during the night, and Mann tuned the manifold. “Kenny tuned it by ear,” Tully said.

Mann and Tully are both veterans of Ascot Speedway, which closed in 1990. “He does good for a 63-year-old guy,” the 45-year-old Mann said of Tully.