Saturday marked the second of four stops for the American Late Model Series presented by Sunoco (ALMS) at Oakshade Raceway in 2004 which was highlighted by the defending Late Model Track Champion Justin Paxton’s feature win.
The 30-lap, $2,000 to win ALMS feature was only slowed once when the yellow flag was thrown for Rick Delong who had come to a stop in turn two on lap three.
Dusty Moore started on the pole and led the first five laps, until Justin Paxton ran him down on lap six after started back in the 10th position.
Brian Ruhlman, with two feature wins under his belt already in 2004 including an ALMS win, moved into second on the following lap.
With no cautions in the final 27 laps, Paxton found himself working through some pretty heavy lapped traffic at the back of the 23-car field. Paxton did open up a substantial lead during the mid-part of the race, but Brian Ruhlman did manage to close within a car length on a few occasions in the final 10 laps while working through lapped traffic.
In the end Paxton was just too strong and won his second late model feature of the year over Ruhlman. Last week’s feature winner and ALMS points leader, Aaron Scott, mustered a third place finish ahead of Tony Marks and Kris Patterson who was a close second in ALMS points, just three behind Scott, coming into the night’s event.
The sportsman division continued its trend of exciting feature races once again. The action heated up early with Dale Cole, Rusty Smith and Rob Liaeff all battling for the lead right from the start, sometimes going three abreast.
Rob Liaeff eventually assumed the lead on lap five and one lap later Denney Winkle cut down a left rear tire and went spinning down the front stretch bringing out the yellow flag.
Liaeff continued to lead and had opened up a bit of an advantage over second place. Ron Shultz, driving like a man on a mission, took second from Rusty Smith on lap seven and then began to close on Liaeff.
Shultz caught Liaeff in the final few laps and on the final lap in the final corner, dove to the inside and snatched the lead from Liaeff as they came to the finish line. Liaeff finished a close second with Tim Fisher third and Rusty Smith fell back to finish fourth.
Not wanting to be outdone, the bomber A Main produced the closest finish of the night’s main events. Bob Gregory and Jim Scout were the class of the field as the two broke away from the pack.
Scout was glued to Gregory’s back bumper the entire race until entering the final corners before the checkered flag. Scout got alongside Gregory down low and the two raced door to door to the finish.
Gregory won the drag race to the checkered flag by the nose of his car. Scout came up just inches short and settled for second. Jake Rendel got by Bill Toedter to finish third and Dan Dippman rounded out the top five finishers.
Dennis Laney led early in the bomber C Main until a caution for Russell Nickoloy came out three laps into the event.
Dan Bliekamp took advantage of the restart to swing around Laney for the lead as the green came back out. Bliekamp began to open up his lead and went on to the easy win over Laney, Josh Caudill and Bob Rendel.
Rich Ruff had an impressive debut at Oakshade Raceway leading the entire distance in the bomber C Main after starting on the outside of the front row.
Jeff Foks Sr. finished second behind Ruff with Adam Lantz third and Chris Williams taking fourth.
Saturday, July 3 is the Howard Miller Memorial at Oakshade featuring exciting late model, sportsman and bomber racing action.