This weekend will find the renewal of Sire Stakes action here at Cal Expo for the sophomore trotting and pacing set, while the popular East-West Amateur Driving Challenge will also take place on Friday and Saturday nights.

            The Challenge features four local amateur pilots against a quartet from the East, and they face off in four races on Friday and four more on Saturday to decide the winning team.

            Representing California are Rick Bertrand, Chris Hernandez, Dave Siegel and Robert Stepien, while the invading group is made up of Dave Ehrenbert, Tony Verruso, Kelly Walker and Tom Williams. The local drivers have won three of the first four events, but the Easterners have assembled an extremely strong team and are seeking some revenge for their 2009 defeat.

 
            Meanwhile, the top California 3-year-old trotters and pacers will square off this weekend in the Spring stakes series. Friday’s program will feature the distaff trotters and pacers going for the big money, while Saturday highlights their male counterparts.

 There will be three rounds of $15,000 events over the next six weeks, and then the $25,000 Championships will be decided on May 22. We’ll find out if the 2-year-olds who played the leading roles last season can continue the momentum, or if some new faces will be taking bows in these added-money events.

 
Looking at Thursday’s headliner, this is a $2,900 contest for pacers that finds Inconvenient Truth, Bolero Twister and Arch Nemeses getting top billing. Inconvenient Truth is a Chris Schick homebred from the Rick Plano barn who has been beaten a total of a neck and a head in his last two appearances at this level.

 
Bolero Twister is a 3-year-old who carries the banner of Linda Magnusson and takes his lessons from Tim Maier. He picked up his most recent victory here on February 20 in coast-to-coast fashion, then finished third last week behind longshot Red Star Ruffles and Inconvenient Truth after carving out all the fractions. Arch Nemeses was first over in that mile for Nathalie Tremblay and Wendi Wiener and weakened to check in fifth as the favorite.