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McGrath claims wild win By TIM PYLE When the racing was done, Brent McGrath stood sixth. When the weighing had finished, McGrath was alone in first. McGrath, a 30-year-old Eagle Point resident, took an unlikely route to win the Miniature Motorsports Racing Association Mini-Cup Nationals main race at South Sound Speedway in Rochester, Wash., Saturday night. The five racers who initially placed in front of McGrath were disqualified after their cars were weighed and inspected by judges. "I kind of felt a little bit like it was handed to me," said McGrath, who is a rookie racer, "but those racers did cheat. And they didn't run away from me - we were all bunched up in a big pack. "It's quite an achievement." McGrath got into the mini-racing world at the behest of friends Terry Tumbleson and Richard "Pink" Smith, who are distributors for Miniature Motorsports of Oregon, Inc., in Eagle Point. Mini-racing is really "for the kids," McGrath said, but his division was composed primarily of racers his age. A Future Stars event, featuring kids 8 to 16 years old, also repeatedly rounded the one-third-mile paved oval course. As for McGrath's race, he qualified second in his heat and seventh overall during Friday's preliminaries. In Saturday's finals, McGrath said he led the race for three laps, then fell back to eighth before finishing the 40-lap featured event sixth. Until, that is, the judges aided his cause. Most of the guilty parties failed to fill their weight bars completely with lead, as the rules mandate, McGrath said, which makes the cars front heavy and provides an advantage. The multiple disqualifications weren't much of a surprise to McGrath. "We've been running in Washington twice this season," he said. "And they're kind of dirty drivers." McGrath next races at the Fairgrounds track in Roseburg on Sept. 8. Reach reporter Tim Pyle at 776-4483 or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.