Hoosier Stock victory hopes deflated
Flat tires completely knocked the wind out of the sails of two frontrunning drivers at Merrittville Speedway Saturday night
Dave Bailey of Hagersville and Brad Sheehan served notice they had the cars to beat in the early going of the Hoosier Stock feature almost from the green flag.
With the field far behind them after the midway point, the 20lapper was shaping up to be a two-way battle for first place.
Only remaining question, or so it seemed at the time, would it be Bailey or Sheehan visiting victory lane for the third time this season?
Turns out, neither one.
In an unhappy coincidence, both of their Camaros slowed down considerably after losing significant pressure in a front right tire. Sheehan’s No. 2 was the first to snail to a comparative crawl, followed by Bailey’s No. 49 a short time later.
Rob Murray, also of St. Catharines, had the horsepower — and enough air in his tires — to fill the void at the front of the pack.
He took over first place with four laps remaining and led a top five of Kyle Pelrine, Dave Small, Billy Bleich Jr. and Tyler Podwinski across the finish line for his seventh win at the Thorold track this season.
Bailey and Sheehan? They placed 10th and 11th, respectively, in the 11-car field.
“Yeah, it’s too bad, but I guess I’m here, so what am I going to say,” Murray said of the misfortune suffered by his fellow drivers.
“Got a flat and that’s that, I guess, eh?” co-track announcer Jim Handley asked the winner in a victory lane interview.
“Yeh, that’s that,” Murray agreed with a laugh.
With the win, Murray increased his lead over Bailey in the race for the track championship to 684 points to 620 with four races remaining on the schedule.
Despite his commanding lead and top-five finishes in each of his features this season, Murray isn’t thinking about capturing his fifth points championship and first since 2012.
“We just run every night as it is, and try to win,” he said. “If the points come along, they come along.
“If not, it’s no big deal.”
St. Catharines’ Mat Williamson also took his seventh checkered flag of the season, but his flag-toflag win in the 50-lap Jerry Winger Memorial for the 358 Modified class was devoid of any drama.
While Williamson did lose leads of several car lengths over Ridgeway’s Gary Lindberg following caution flags on Laps 45 and 49, he had the car that couldn’t be beat.
“The track was pretty good, but starting on the pole helps,” Williamson said. “I can’t thank my guys enough, they gave me a fast hot rod tonight.”
Lindberg, who started alongside Williamson in the front row, was in second from start to finish.
“Gary’s a helluva race car driver,” he said. “I seen him poke his nose there on Lap 10 on the outside.
“I figured it was a little bit better on the bottom, but I’ve lost a lot of money leading races and getting passed with one or two (laps) to go in the last month.
“I didn’t want to let that happen again.”
Ryan Susice, Mike Bowman and Scott Wood rounded out the top five in an extended distance race that honours the memory of an up-and-coming driver who died due to an illness in 1959.
Two Niagara Falls drivers — James Michael Friesen, Sportsman; John Couture, Pure Stock V6 — each raced to their third victories of the season.
Friesen took over the lead at the midway point of the cautionfilled, 25-lap Sportsman feature and remained the front-runner the rest of the way.
“We’ve had a good car the last couple of weeks and were not really able to finish it off with a win,” he said. “The way we had her set up, I needed to use a lot of the track.
“It took me a little while to
clear traffic, but once we did, the car was good.”
Adam Leslie, Paul Gaboury, Robbie Johnson and Brett Begolo rounded out the top five in the Sportsman main event. Colton Lane, Chris Mussat, Kevin Conley and Kenny Hair trailed Couture across the finish line in the 6-cylinder feature.
Jeffrey May of Mount Hope, Ont., a Hamilton suburb, won his first Mod Lite feature of the season. Josh Sliter, Chris Watson, Begolo and Randy Giroux also finished in the top five.
Winners of the Vintage Car features on Reunion Night were Steve Billings of Merrickville, Ont., southwest of Ottawa, in Sportsman Vintage, and Mike Shadwell of Hamilton in Modified Vintage
Drivers-turned-starters Barry Davidson and Gary DeVos were inducted into the speedway’s Wall of Fame in a pre-race ceremony.
Also honoured were Art Bicknell and Jim Irvine who each received a CAA Niagara Dedication to Racing Award.
Weather permitting, racing returns Monday night with a 100-lap battle of the big blocks, a BEI Lightning Series race of Sportsman, Hoosier Stocks and Mini Stocks.