Mini Stock feature goes down to the wire
Drivers Alex Riley and Jay Moulton, snug and safely secured by a five-point harness, had nowhere to go from their seats behind the wheel.
Saturday night’s photo finish in the Mini Stocks feature was a different story entirely for race fans in the main grandstand at Merrittville Speedway.
They were either at the edge of their seats or completely out of them and standing when Riley, a Thorold native, wheeled into the final turn assured of another victory at his hometown track.
Moulton didn’t see it that way from his arguably much better seat in the house.
While Riley had set the pace for much of the extended-distance, 30-lap feature, Moulton was always far too close to Riley’s back bumper for comfort, especially toward the end of the final round in this year’s Triple Crown series for 4-cylinders.
“I worked on him for like 20 laps, and I seen I was quicker than him on the outside of (Turn) 4, so I took a run at him and just got him,” Moulton, from St. Catharines, said in victory lane after his first win of the season at Merrittville. “Wow, what a race, it was so exciting.”
“Just go him” was understatement, given the gulf between the two Volkswagen Gulfs was four one-thousandths of a second.
The finish was so close that track officials had to check exactly where the time-transmitting transponders were mounted in the two, front-wheel-drive racers. Riley didn’t go home empty-handed. His second-place finish was more than enough to give him the Triple Crown championship.
“Aw, that was so close, what a great race,” Riley said.
In his post-race remarks Riley made a point of thanking fellow Mini Stocks driver Cole Hardy for sponsoring the three-race series.
“It was definitely a heck of a race, I wish I was able to get up there and, maybe, we could have had a three-way finish at the line,” Hardy said after finishing second in the Triple Crown points race. “Congrats to Jay for finally winning a race, it’s been a hard season for him. Next year we’ll come back and do it again.”
Moulton, who was fifth in Mini Stocks at New Humberstone Speedway heading into Sunday night’s race program, wasn’t the only hard charger from
St. Catharines to visit victory lane at Merrittville.
After overtaking Kyle Pelrine, the pace-setter for much of the Hoosier Stock feature, Rob Murray held off Brad Sheehan for his division-high sixth win of the season.
While another checkered flag appeared in doubt after the M1 Camaro slipped back to fourth with four laps remaining, the loss of ground didn’t worry Murray.
“When I got on the outside, I got pushed out a little,” he said. “I just had to wait my time to get back to the bottom.”
With the win, Murray increased his lead over two-time defending champion Dave Bailey in the race for the track title in the speedway’s 8-cylinder division. Victory lane also hosted visits from St. Catharines drivers in Modified 358 and Sportsman classes as Pete Bicknell and Jay Mallory raced to their first victories of the season.
Caistor Centre’s Adam Plazek won his seventh feature of the year in Pure Stock V6, the speedway’s newest class.
Home away from home
Ohsweken Speedway is the home track for Crate Sprint racing in the region, but you have a hard time convincing Jacob
Dykstra of that.
The 15-year-old Lakeshore Catholic High School student from Port Colborne is more than happy to power his winged warrior around the D-shaped racing surface at Merrittville, thank you very much.
Hard to blame him considering how much he has raced, and won, at his home track away from home in Thorold.
On Saturday night Dykstra started in the front row and remained up front the rest of the way for his first career win on the Action Sprint Tour.
He led a top five of Ryan Hunsinger, Aaron Turkey, a two-time winner on this year’s tour; Dereck Lemyre and Jesse Costa across the finish line in the 20-lap feature.
Dykstra was able to withstand challenges from more-experienced racers thanks to many opportunities to practise at Merrittville.
“It’s helped a lot, I’ve had over a million laps here in practices the past few years,” Dykstra said. “It’s my home track, so it’s just awesome to park it in victory lane.”
Grimsby’s Paul Klager and Fonthill’s Steven Beckett, both graduates of the karting and Mod Lite programs at Merrittville, placed sixth and seventh, respectively, in the competitive 20-car field.
Klager, a rookie in the class at age 45, is finding Crate Sprints different from any car he’s raced in 10 years in karts, 11 in Mod Lites and one in Modified 358.
“It’s a totally different animal compared to a Mod Lite, a Sportsman or a Modified,” said Klager, an account manager for Schneider Electric, the sponsors of Saturday night’s program.
Unlike the other cars Klager, a.k.a. The Beamsville Bullet, has raced, Crate Sprints requires a lot more work and concentration behind the wheel.
“You have to stay on the throttle,” he said. “The car gets upset when you’re off the throttle.”
By far, that is the biggest thing he is getting used to in his first year competing in the Crate Sprint division.
“In a Modified or Mod Lite, getting off the throttle and you’re rolling on the front right,” Klager said. “Then you get back on the throttle.
“If you do that with these, basically you’re looking for the hotdog stand.”