Oakshade Raceway hosted its last race of the season on Saturday afternoon with an exciting 200-lap enduro race.
Brad Baklund who had won the last enduro race took command early and set a fast pace in the first 50 laps.
This week, luck was not on Baklund’s side. Mike Kimpel got turned around in turn one in front of a pack of cars that included the leader. Baklund ended up hooked together with Kimpel’s car and sat in the corner for many laps.
Jake Rendel was also caught up in the incident making heavy contact with Kimpel. Rendel was running in the top three, but the accident ended his afternoon early.
Baklund finally got separated and continued on, but not until after Jeremy Grover took the lead. Grover maintained the lead until shortly after the halfway point in the race when the right rear wheel came off and almost caused Grover to roll over, but luckily for him the car came back down on the three remaining wheels.
Grover dragged his car back to the pits and made a quick stop to add a fourth wheel to his car. He appeared to maintain the lead after the fast stop, but a few laps later the right rear wheel fell off and again almost sent Grover’s car rolling over. Grover’s car came back down hard right side up, but his day was over.
Mike Lauharn was next to lead and held on to it for over 50 laps with Craig Dippman closing in. Just as Dippman was about to catch Lauharn, Lauharn dove into the pits.
Dippman took over the lead within the final 25 laps and appeared to have the win locked up with at least a five lap lead over his nearest competitor. Then bad luck struck again with less than two laps to go. Dippman limped down the backstretch and into the pits a lap and a half shy of the checkered flag.
Eventually Chris Williams completed enough laps to take the lead with Brad Baklund behind him on the same lap.
Williams held on to take the checkered flag with Baklund settling for second. Craig Dippman maintained a third place finish with Chris Joy fourth. Both drivers completed 198 laps. Mike Lauharn fell back to finish fifth after completing 188 laps.
