After being rained out the week before, Oakshade Raceway was back in action with another exciting night of racing highlighted by the 2000 Late Model Track Champion, Kris Patterson, winning the late model feature.
A spectacular accident brought things to a halt early in the night in the second late model heat event after contact with Rusty Schlenk sent Todd Nuding’s 07 flying into a series of wild barrel rolls before coming to rest upside down against the turn four retaining wall. Nuding climb out of the car under his own power with no serious injuries, but his car was destroyed.
Once the field of 50 late models was narrowed down to the 21 starters in the feature, 1998 Late Model track Champion, Rody Schroyer, found himself out front with the lead early with Kris Patterson glued to his back bumper. Those two drivers pulled away from the rest of the field and started catch the back of the field.
Jeep Van Wormer and Justin Paxton, running third and fourth respectively, started to close in the two leaders as they worked through traffic.
A caution on lap 15 tightened up the front-runners even more and on the following lap, Patterson made the move around Schroyer to take the lead and then began to pull away to the victory.
Schroyer held off Paxton for a second place finish. Rick Delong finished fourth followed by Patrick Barney and Hillard Miller.
Joe Derbeck commanded the sportsman feature leading from start to finish. Tim Fisher was the only driver to be able to mount a little challenge for the lead but ended up second.
Brad Kendall finished third followed by Ray Klaywitter who was the winner of the two previous sportsman features.
Next up, the bombers took center stage with the Bomber A Main, the first of four bomber features. Kevin Cole jumped out to a big lead over Ron Tolles and Dale Cole at the start of the event.
George Laney and Brice Luttrell, who both started in the eighth row, worked their way to the front with Luttrell taking the lead on lap 10.
The defending bomber champion, Brice Luttrell, went on to win his first bomber feature of the year. Second went to George Laney who was followed by Rob Price and Kevin Cole who ended up fourth.
Bill Toedter had a string of bad luck in his heat event but turned things around in the Bomber B Main. Toedter was leading his heat event when he had to take evasive action to avoid a car that was leaving the track for the pits. Later in the same event, Toedter was closing back in on the leaders, but again had to jam on the brakes after a lapped car was spun around directly in front of him.
Toedter’s faired much better in his feature, leading the entire event, holding off Dan Bleikamp, Jim Scout and Tom Ordway for the victory.
Randy Grohowski spun early in the Bomber C Main while leading the race turning the lead over to David Goben. Ted Goetz Jr. took the lead away from Goben on the restart and pulled away.
Despite a challenge from Chris Howard who spun after catching the leader, Goetz won the event easily with Tim Streight Jr. finishing second and Bob Rendel third.
Gary Cole made it three wide to take the lead away from Andy Borton early on in the Bomber D Main. Borton tried to battle back, but lost it and spun while running in second.
Cole went on to hold off Robert Gregory for the win.
This coming Saturday will mark the first of four American Late Model Series events at Oakshade Raceway this Summer.
