By: Dan Turner/ announcer Wyoming County International Speedway
It was another exciting night of racing Saturday, Aug. 25, at the Blacktop Bullring. The three weekly classes were battling for a championship, on Double point night.
With an almost full moon, The racing was far from boring and kept all in attendance on the edge of their seat with plenty of racing action and the drama unfolding with the point chase on the line. The question was, who would put it all on the line to gain points or advance themselves and who was going to play conservatively and try to not lose any points to their competition?
And then you throw in the wild card of those that are only here for the trophy and the big check with no regards for points, because they don’t run here every week.
It wasn’t 'til feature time before the near full moon showed itself, and most people know that for some un-scientific reason odd things happen. The 4 cylinder class had a heated point chase going on. Kathie Ricketson in her Rudy red Ricketson Rocket, has been very steady and consistently in the top 5 all season long, other than her one crash early in the season.
Then we add Dave Heimes, a regular at the Spencer Speedway. Dave has had some great runs at WCIS and even picked up a feature win. Just to make things interesting we have to add a third horse to the race and that would be the Bradshaw family racing #05 piloted by Otis Bradshaw. Otis taking over the driving duties of the #05 from his sister in-law that vacated the seat in favor of having another racing baby boy Bradshaw. So Otis in the #05 is only 29 points out of the point chase while Heimes is a mere 11 going into tonight’s Double Point night.
Young gun Jonathan Klamut and Ricketson would be on the front row. Bradshaw would start third and Heimes fourth. As the green fell it was obvious what each of the top three driver’s mission was. Bradshaw threw caution to the wind and wanted, no needed the win for ant shot at the championship. Heimes was looking to beat Ricketson by two positions to claim the championship. Kathie was on the some mode as she was all season, run hard but run safe and keep the Heimes #8 insight. Bradshaw did or was doing what he needed to do. Get out front and try to run off and hide on the field.
That plan was working til the caution flew and put the red, white and blue #66 of Gustafson to Otis’s inside on the restart. Bradshaw battled for a handful of laps til Gustafson took the number one position. About half way the #8 of Heimes over took Ricketson. Ricketson knew she had to stay with the #8 to win the championship.
As the laps were winding down amothe Spencer invader was hot on Ricketson’s bumper. Corey Copeland was working on the #44 and with only a few circuits left he had his #89 machine door to door with Ricketson. Ricketson ripped a page out of her lady luck book and pinned Copeland behind a slow moving lap car and cruised to a forth place finish, only one spot behind the Heimes #8 and good enough to collect her first track championship.
Super stocks point chase was not as heated as other classes. Meyers in his beautiful #17x machine was fairly comfortable with a 32 point advantage over Eric Hastreiter. Hastreiter thou was under fire by Dan Majchrzak that was only 5 point separation. Majchrzak would start 5th tonight, Hastreiter 6th and point leader Meyers would fire from 9th position. Majchrzak need a win and problems for the Meyers car. Hastreiter also need Meyer to have issues , but only needed to stay ahead of Majchrzak to collect his first track championship.
Joe Horvatits would use his pole position starting spot to jump out front early and look as he may pick up a win after a horrible July where he nearly totaled his #4 Super stock with heavy rear end damage from a big wreck. The first of three yellows flew with Kyle Skoney losing the handle on his #55 machine off turn four. No contact so a quick yellow and back to green. Though this class may not have 20 cars its 10 very well matched field, that makes it incredibly tough to pass. And that’s how being in the right place, right time got Meyers past the #47 of Hastreiter and #14 of Majchrzak. Horvatits was not about to roll over, Joe raced Meyers hard and clean til meyer slipped pasted to the eventual win and championship. Horvatits 2nd and Hastreiter 3rd, Majchrzak 4th.
Feature event 3 on Championship night would see our Bi-weekly division the Super 6’s take to the 1/3 mile Bullring. This was leading up to a track first as Allison Knoepfler was leading points going into tonight program. Both John Parthermer and Spencer invader Andy Cocilova where within 6 points of Knoepfler. Parthermer and Cocilova would start on the front row while Knoepfler would have to start from 3rd. It would be 20 laps to see who was going to claim the win and a championship. For the first 5 or 6 laps the front row stayed together and ran door handle to door handle.
Thus slowing Knoepfler and allowing Brain Hallett in the #36 a team car to Knoepfler to not only catch her but challenge her for the 3rd position. The car on the move was the Wilbert’s you pick it #51 of Barrett Schenk. Rolling from 4th starting spot he used the high line to drive around both Cocilova and Parthermer. Parthermer would fade toward the end and finish 5th as Cocilova would finish 2nd and just beat out Knoepfler for the 2018 track championship.
SST Modifieds, boasting another 20 car field on Championship/ Double point night. As in all the classes before this feature event was another with a lot of open ended 2018 stories that needed a 35 lap main event to settle or finish this seasons drama. Out front in points was a driver that came into the 2018 season with all his Ts crossed and Is dotted. It showed as all season long outside of a wreck his guy was on the front stretch almost every night, that’s consistency.
Ricky Knapp Jr. rolled into the speedway with a healthy 104 point lead over Dan Majchrzak, 107 over Toad Bradshaw, 122 over Steve Fuchs and 135 over Cassie Logsdon. So a smooth night was all his guy needed to wrap out a championship. 2nd thru 5th these four drivers were hungry and ready to do what it took to gain a spot or more, all secretly wishing Knapp may have mechanical issues on the #11.
The top six positions in the feature were filled with somewhat new comers to the modified ranks on the pole was Tom Alloco, first full year in a modified, flanking was Zack Kosachook also fairly new to a full season in the seat of a modified. Carrie Brown and Geoff Sharkey made up row 2 and Nate Michielsen and Cassie Logsdon in row 3. The point contenders would have to race thru the young guns the cap off their season. Toad Bradshaw would slice and dice his way to the front and take the top spot from pole position starter Tom Alloco on a restart after a first lap incident involving the spinning Carrie Brown and Sharky would get collected by young Steve Sherwood.
A few laps later it would be the #29 of Jay Withey Jr spinning off turn four and coming to a rest head on to the on coming leaders. All would clear and all would restart. This made for a front row restart with both Bradshaw cars up front. Toad to the inside and Bro to the outside. Bro used the highline to power past his brother to get the lead. The man on a mission was the #40 of Alan Bookmiller. Bookmiller was not a regular all season so he was only running for the win and the big check. Bookmiller came out of the 15th starting spot and by half way was challenging for the lead.
After some contact between the rear of Bookmiller car Toad Bradshaw had left front suspension issues and would fall out of contention. Bookmiller would then set his sights on Bro Bradshaw. After a few hard fought laps it was Bookmiller out front and Bradshaw had to deal with a hard charging Knapp. Knapp had just cleared the #0 of Bro Bradshaw as Bradshaw was getting looser as the laps were winding down.
With only 6 laps remaining, Bradshaw spins exiting turn four. This would tighten up the field for a 6 lap dash for cash, the win and most importantly the championship. Bookmiller took the inside, Knapp had the outside. Majchrzajk and Timmy Lewis made up the second row. Lewis having a great night on his first trip back to the Perry track since his breaking his leg in a dirt bike incident and numerous surgeries. Bookmiller used the short way around the speedway to regain the lead and slide Knapp back to second.
“ We really were not that good in the heat, so we threw the kitchen sink at it and it was almost perfect,” Bookmiller said. “We were really good tonight, just a bit of a push coming off, and just could not hang out there and pass Alan."
"But we will take this second and engoy our track championship though I really wanted to win both, feature and track title,” Knapp said.
Though the points racing is done for 2018, there are still two more events on the schedule.
Sat Sept. 1st
Labor day Mod 100 $1,000 to win Jim Pierce Mem. Qual. Guarantee starter
Super Stocks 50 laps 4Cyl. 25 laps 6Cyl. 20 laps Vintage 15 laps
Gates open at 1 p.m. and racing at 4 p.m.
$18 adults $5 students (10-16) Free 9 and under
Shoot out at the Bullring Oct. 12 -13 (Sunday Oct .14 rain date)
Check website for details www.wcisbullring.com
4 Cylinders Heats: O.Bradshaw, J.Pierce Jr.
1)J.Gustafson, 2)O.Bradshaw, 3)D.Heimes, 4)K.Ricketson, 5)C.Copeland, 6)J.Sass, 7)S.Sickles, 8)M.Hurlburt, 9)K.Kocher, 10)J.London, 11)T.Gaddy, 12)J.Klamut, 13)J.Pierce Jr.
Super 6 Heats: A.Cocoilova
1)B.Schenk, 2)A.Cocilova, 3)A.Knoepfler, 4)B.Hallett, 5)J.Parthermer, 6)R.Cassidy, 7)K.Chenaille
Super Stocks Heats: J.Horvatits, C.Hicks Jr
1)Z.Meyers, 2)J.Horvatits, 3)E.Hastreiter, 4)D.Majchrzak, 5)P.Flye, 6)C.Hicks, 7)M.Chenaille, 8)S.Gleed, 9)K.Skoney, 10)F.Kline
SST Modifieds Heats: T.Alloco, D.Majchrzak, R. Knapp Jr.
1)A.Bookmiller, 2)R.Knapp Jr, 3)D.Majchrzak, 4)T.Lewis, 5)C.Logsdon, 6)D.Pringle, 7)N.Michielsen, 8)B.Bradshaw, 9)B.Kosachook Sr, 10)Z.Kosachook, 11)C.Brown, 12)J.Whithey Jr, 13)T.Bradshaw, 14)D.Frutchey, 15)T.Alloco, 16)G.Sharkey, 17)S.Sherwood, 18)S.Fuchs, 19)T.Weist, 20)M.Virts
