Ryan Bernal has battled injury and the competition to earn yet
another accolade
HOLLISTER
Some kids leave their dirty socks lying around the house. Ryan Bernal was leaving his trophies.
It might not have been his fault, however, as the 14-year-old freshman at San Benito High School had so many trophies and plaques from racing that there simply was no where else to put them, hence their dirty-laundry like placement around the Bernal household.
With some of them bigger and taller than Ryan himself, the Bernal family was forced to load up approximately 400 trophies into a flat-bed truck and head to the landfill.
While keeping the placards and some of the more notable trophies, like Ryan’s very first award in racing, the Bernal’s had no other option but to clean house, and it took three truck loads to do so.
But laundry has a way of piling up, of course, and so do Ryan’s accolades.
The Hollister driver took the track championship last Friday at Watsonville’s Ocean Speedway in the wingless sprint division, finishing first in each of three races on the night to narrowly edge second-place finisher David Press of Foster City for the title.
In fact, Bernal was trailing by 12 points coming in to the final night, and needed to take first place in every race just to have a chance.
With the two drivers knotted atop the leaderboard at the end of Friday’s races – after Bernal won the heat race, the trophy dash and the main event – the tiebreaker went to Bernal for having more main event wins over the course of the season.
“I adapted faster than I thought I would,” said Bernal, who was in his first year of driving wingless sprints, not to mention one of the youngest drivers in the class. Only Morgan Hill’s Devon Ostheimer is the same age as Ryan, while the two of them are up against other drivers in their 20s, 30s and even 40s.
“I was really surprised,” Bernal said. “I didn’t think my main event win would come as fast as it did.”
Situated comfortably in the driver’s seat since he was 4-years-old, Bernal’s winning secret is his experience. He’s absorbed everything he could through 10 years behind the wheel, and after three years in the modified midget division, Bernal graduated to the speedy wingless sprints this year.
Recently clocked at 94 miles per hour, Bernal has picked up the ins and outs of the new racing class with surprising ease.
He said it took him about the first three weekends of the season just to get used to the new car – which are bigger and faster than modified midgets, but react slower – and about half the season simply to be competitive.
“You can see his progression,” said Ryan’s father, Rick. “He went from somewhat total control of the car to absolutely controlling the car now. It’s a world of difference.”
But racing to the wingless sprint championship for Bernal may have come on a wing and a prayer. If adapting to a new car wasn’t enough adversity, Bernal coupled his learning curve with three different injuries, two of which came on the track.
In Antioch, Bernal came off the corner and collided with another driver heading into the straight-away, going end-over-end in the air – 1,700 pounds five feet off the ground.
“I was sore the next day, but it destroyed the car,” Bernal said. “But the next one in Watsonville, I got the wind knocked out of me and it hurt my back pretty bad.”
Bernal went to hospital that night in Watsonville after the car in front of him hit the brakes while coming around a corner. Bernal’s sprint car hit the tire in front of him and was launched into the air and up over the wall.
Yes, up over the wall.
“It still bothers me today,” Bernal said of his back.
Both accidents were bad, but neither kept Bernal off the track, amazingly. Although he lost out on points for not finishing either race, and even fell back to fourth place by a 30- to 35-point deficit, he was back the following week to compete.
“He drinks his milk and eats his vegetables,” joked Rick.
Bernal was even on crutches for a short while due to a motocross injury, and although he wore a soft cast for six weeks due to a fractured growth plate in his foot, he removed the cast come race time.
Refusing to slow down, Bernal will compete in the Wingless Nationals in Chico on Oct. 10-11, and already wants to move up to a faster class despite just completing his rookie year.
“He wants to go up in something faster,” Rick said. “But we’re gonna keep him down in the same class this coming year. He doesn’t need to be moving up so quick.”
Responded Ryan, tongue in cheek, “Ahh, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
