Drivers go the distance on final race night
Two drivers didn’t rest on their laurels as track champions when the 2018 racing season wrapped up at Merrittville Speedway with extended-distance races.
Rob Murray of St. Catharines set the pace in a 50-lap InstaPanels Duel on the Dirt series race a week after capturing his fifth Hoosier stock championship and first since 2012.
A victory by 1.984 seconds over Ryan Beagle was the St. Catharines driver’s 10th checkered flag at his hometown track this season.
Dave Small, Brad Sheehan and Chris Hale rounded out the top five in the longest race of the season in the 8-cylinder division at the Thorold dirt track this season.
Brent Begolo, who this year topped the point standings in both the Sportsman and Mod Lite racing classes, visited victory lane for the eighth time in the last Mod Lite feature of the season.
The third-generation driver from Thorold was followed across the finish line by Jamie Gilbert, Tyler Winger, Randy Giroux and R.J. Pietz.
Brad Rouse of St. Catharines outraced the Sportsman field in the 50-lap Super DIRTcar Series race one night after winning a 50-lapper at Ransomville Speedway in western New York.
“Running the top went away some,” he said in victory lane at Merrittville. “I knew Brent (Begolo) is good on the bottom.
“I knew I had to run the mid or high line.”
Begolo wound up third in the Sportsman feature trailing Rouse and James Michael Friesen across the finish line. Cody McPherson, the points champion at New Humberstone Speedway this year, and Justin Sharp rounded out the top 10.
As was the case last year, Welland’s Jim Huppenen was in the running to finish first in the Southern Ontario Sprints finale.
Unlike last year, he was able to withstand all challengers over the late going.
“I gave it away last year, I had the same starting spot,” Huppenen said in his post-race comments. “It’s a thin line, this year I didn’t screw up.”
Cory Turner of Caistor Centre finished fifth in the 25-lap feature, but ended the season
as the Southern Ontario Sprint champion.
“I always like it here, our family has run lots of laps here,” the son of Merrittville Speedway Wall of Famer said.
“We stepped up our game and it’s starting to show.”
Ryan Turner led the feature until Huppenen took control after one lap.
Scott Kreutter, Dylan Westbrook and Ryan Turner all finished in the top five.
Port Colborne’s Kevin Conley won his first race of the season after leading the Pure Stock V6 feautre by five car lengths eight laps into 12-lapper.
John Couture, first-ever track champion of Merrittville’s newest division, James Small, Colton Lane and Mike Nicholls rounded out the top five.
Track Talk: The 2018 InstaPanels Duel of the Dirt Series wraps up Saturday, Sept. 22, at Brighton Speedway, west of Belleville … Merrittville’s awards banquet is set for Saturday, Nov. 24, at Club Castropignano in Port
Robinson.