Winners – Doerr, Smith, Easton and McCullough
Doerr Douses Delaware Draught
During Exeter Toyota / Nostalgia night at Delaware Speedway, Jay Doerr (#43) of London, raced his way to a win in his heat race, and backed it up with a wire-to-wire feature win in the FT Garage NASCAR Late Model feature.
He walked away from the field in the 35-lap affair, and pulled to a lead of an entire straight-away, as the yellow didn’t fly after lap two. He spoke about the lead, “Dad was spotting for me, and told me that I was leading by a straightaway, and I couldn’t believe it. I wasn’t driving that hard, because I knew I was leading and wanted to save the tires if we had a late yellow. But we didn’t want a yellow – that’s for sure.”
For Doerr who has competed at Delaware since the late 90’s, it was his first win at his home town track in four seasons. “We went to Merrittville and ran on the dirt for a couple of years, and then got back into a Late Model here in 2010 and it feels real good to be back in victory lane at Delaware.”
Adam Quarrie (#6) of Dorchester, moved to second following the lap two yellow caused when Kenny Forth (#86) of Lynden, hammered the front stretch wall. It came after contact with Cole Powell (#25) of Mt. Brydges, who was running behind Forth on the front straightaway.
Quarrie was just fast enough to keep everyone at bay, including Matt Robblee (#28) of Dorchester, who ran third until lap 26 when Shawn Thompson (#72) of Ailsa Craig, moved past. With the laps running down, Thompson executed the prefect bump-and-run. He got Quarrie loose through the middle of turn one and two, and powered to the inside down the back stretch moving into the runner-up spot. Point leader Andrew Gresel (#81) of Hepworth, passed Quarrie as well and then made short work of Thomson for second, only to find that he needed to dial long distance to get a hold of Doerr.
With Doerr only racing on a part-time basis, Gresel’s point total on the night helped him expand his lead in the standings to 59 over Matt Pritiko (#21) of London, who finished fifth. Thompson finished third, while Robblee wound up fourth.
Thompson won the other heat race.
Smith Wins Super Stock Feature – Takes Over Point Lead
The championship shuffled on Friday for the Dynamic Fluid Super Stocks in their feature as four drivers came into the night within 15 points of the championship lead. A broken shock led to point leader ‘Cowboy’ Kris Lawrence (#28) of London, having a DNF. Then, while racing for the lead, Jason Lidster (#11) of St. Thomas, led Steve ‘Pee Wee’ Smith (#84) of Arkona. Smith finally drew alongside Lidster on the bottom as the pair entered turns one and two. Smith lost the rear end of his car and slid into Lidster. As Jason slid to a stop on the exit of turn two, he was creamed by Andrew Perkins (#3) of London, who had nowhere to go.
Smith would lead the rest of the way to claim his first feature win of the season and take the point lead by seven over Lawrence. Steve said, “It feels great to be the point leader, and awesome to win tonight. Our car was no good on restarts, and it would take two or three laps to come in. I took a different line on the restarts to try and get a good run through turns three and four.”
As for the contact that knocked Lidster out, Smith said, “We were in the opposite spot last week. I was behind him, and he knew I was there. This week, there we are 15 laps in, and he’s in first again. I knew it was going to be hard to get by him, because he doesn’t make mistakes very often. I was there, and got a little loose and got into him. It was just racing.”
Darrell ‘Hollywood’ Lake (#77) of London, led the first 10 laps and finished second, while Jake Ott (#60) of Ayr, passed the fourth title contender Paul Fothergill (#33) of London, late in the race for third. Ken McNichol (#17) of Exeter, finished fourth, while Fothergill – coming back from a huge wreck two weeks ago – finished fifth.
Lake and Lawrence were victorious in heat race competition.
Easton Wins ‘Old School’ Feature on Nostalgia Night
The Lucas Oil Canadian Vintage Modifieds made their only appearance of the season at Delaware on Friday, and Ron Easton (#00) of Oakville, was able to dominate the feature for his first main event win of the season.
Easton took the lead early and would face Jeff Shaw (#81) of Grand Valley, but after contact between the pair Shaw ended up in the fence, ending his night.
Easton would then hold off point leader Jason Keene (#18) of Oakville, in the closing laps to seal the victory. He talked about the win, “Shaw snuck up on me and got into the side of me, and then he got into me. He went inside again and came out of the dark. I’m sorry he got wrecked. At the end we had all those restarts, and our right rear would cool and it took me a couple of laps to get going away.”
Keene finished second, while Brian Atkinson (#82) of Millgrove, finished third.
McCullough Scores Hat Trick in All-Star Event
The GAW Recycling Enduro race saw Derek ‘Pitbull’ McCullough (#38) of Glencoe, find his way to the front of the field early in the feature and take the lead away from Steve ‘The Silver Bullet’ Lovie (#141) of Thorndale on lap 10. McCullough would avoid a number of double-file restarts to claim his third consecutive ‘All-Star’ Friday night event of the season.
McCullough didn’t get to the front of the field as quick as Lovie, Ed Jeffery (#9) of Appin, and Barry Watson (#45) of Wallacetown, and said, “I was trying to take my time, and pace myself, because there were less cars than usual. It seemed like they were all pulling away, and I had to go.”
Derek was also able to survive a number of restarts, “I didn’t need all those yellows. I knew I had to beat them into turn one. Then there was so much speedy-dry on the track and it was low. Our car works best when we’re bottom feeding, but once I was able to run my own line out front I was able to pull away. I wanted to get three in a row, and winning an actual Enduro would top the year off.”
Steve Book (#64) of Brantford, rallied late to post a solid second-place finish, while Jeffery wound up third.
McCullough and Gary Zwygers (#93) of Cambridge both won heat races.
Story and Photos by Jamie Maudsley and www.maudsleymotorsports.com
