Rusty Schlenk had already unofficially sewn up his third Oakshade Raceway Late Model track championship, but the competition remained fast and furious on the final night of track point competition at Oakshade Raceway with Casey Noonan finding his second feature win of the season.
The defending track champion, Casey Noonan, got the lead at the start of the Season Championship Night feature after starting on the outside of the front row. Shortly after a restart for a caution on lap seven, Devin Shiels tried to get underneath Noonan to challenge for the lead as the duo dove into turn three. Shiels ran out of race track and spun as Noonan held his line not leaving much room to the inside.
Jeff Babcock and Chris Keller had a great battle for second for much of the race. The two drivers kept trading positions until Brian Ruhlman caught them and moved by both drivers for second. No one was able to catch Noonan who said he finally got things figured out with his car and it showed. Ruhlman secured second in the final point standings with his second place finish. Babcock got by Keller to finish third with Josh Scott ending up fifth.
The UMP Sportsman feature once again produced some exciting racing for the lead as it has for most of the season. Mike Jessen took command early, but Bruce Stuart quickly closed in and took the lead away on lap five. Jessen regrouped and eventually got back to the inside of Stuart to battle again for the lead. After a couple laps of side by side racing, Jessen reassumed the lead with four laps to go and went on to pick up his third feature win of the year which also added to his point lead in the Sportsman division with two weeks of point competition left. Rusty Smith finished second after getting by Stuart who slipped back to third. Tim Line started 10th and finished fourth with Rich Ruff ending up fifth after starting even deeper in the field in 15th.
Terry Rushlow took the lead from Danny Hogrefe on the third lap of an exciting UMP Bomber A Main feature event. Hogrefe didn’t give up and fought back to regain the lead just as a caution flag came out that put Rushlow back in the lead for the restart. Shortly after the restart, Jeff Foks from Holland, Ohio got alongside Rushlow and made the pass on lap six. The two drivers traded the lead a few times, but Foks finally got control for good and put some distance on Rushlow on his way to his second A Main win of the year. Rushlow then had his hands full fending off Jim Scout to finish third. Following Scout was Billy Brown in fourth and Craig Dippman fifth.
Derek Morris increased his Hornet feature win streak to five with his seventh win of the year. The win also put him into the point lead by just two points over Drew Smith. Drew Smith once again posted a second place finish in the feature race with Ben Finch III coming home third after an incident earlier in the race with Breanna Franks. William Cundick and Troy Schalitz rounded out the rest of the top five finishers.
Garry Domoe made a four-wide move to get the lead at the start of the UMP Bomber B Main and after a series of caution periods during the race, went on to an easy win over Josh Montague, Gregg Detray, Karl Spoores and Dean Taylor who recovered from a spin earlier in the race.
A huge mess in the first set of corners of the UMP Bomber C Main resulted in a complete restart. Dave “Gumby” Golembiewski took the lead on that restart over pole sitter Matt Rose. Ron Bloomfield and Perry Cox moved around Gumby for the top two positions on lap three. Tim McNicol cut down a left rear tire after he moved up to third and retired to the pits. Bloomfield went on to pick up the easy victory over Perry Cox, Nathan Goodman, Dave “Gumby,” and Josh Curtis who started 16th.
Labor Day weekend marks the final American Late Model Series event of the season at Oakshade Raceway paying $2,000 to win this Saturday night. UMP Sportsmen, UMP Bombers and Hornets will complete the evening’s racing program with gates opening at 4pm and racing at 7pm.