Oakshade Raceway was back in action Saturday night after being rained out the week before and the 2001 Late Model Champion, Justin Paxton, was back to his winning ways.
Rick Delong took command early on in the late model feature after starting on the pole. Delong then began to pull away from the second place automobile driven by Devin Shiels.
After slipping back a few positions on the first lap, Justin Paxton moved his way up to second and then started to reel in Delong who was trying to negotiate his way through lapped traffic.
Paxton snatched the lead away on lap 11 and then started to pull away. Meanwhile, Delong and Todd Schroyer kept trading the second spot back on forth.
A late caution wiped out Paxton’s lead and allowed Delong and Schroyer to challenge the leader the final five laps, but Paxton was too strong and won his first late model feature of the year over Delong and Schroyer. Rusty Schlenk finished fourth with Greg Martin rounding out the top five.
Joe Derbeck was going for his second sportsman feature win of the year and he put himself out front at the start, but the car on the move was that of Chris Smith. Smith disposed of the 28 driven by Rob Liaeff to take over second and then began to close in on Derbeck.
Smith eventually caught and passed Derbeck and went on to win his first sportsman feature of the year. Derbeck held off a quickly closing Ray Klaywtter to finish second.
It took four starts just to get one lap completed in the bomber A Main. Once things finally got going, Brice Luttrell took the lead away from Matt Shipley on lap four and went on to win his third bomber A Main in a row after a couple DNF’s earlier this year.
Shipley suffered mechanical problems with two laps to go and fell off the pace giving up second. Rob Price assumed the second spot and went on to finish there ahead of George Laney and Gary Cole.
The bomber B Main turned out to be one of the most exciting races of the night with Billy Ruff leading most of the race. Gary Domoe worked his way to second and then battled side by side with Ruff for the final few laps.
Domoe finally managed to complete the pass and take the lead coming off of turn four as he came to the checkered flag. Ruff finished a close second with Bob Rendel third.
The bomber C Main was equally as exciting as the B Main as Mitch Betz closed in on Doug Lance who led the entire race. Betz tried to get to the outside of Lance coming off of turn two on the final lap and ran out of race track. Betz bounced off the backstretch wall and spun off turn three.
Lance took the victory with Rick Dixon second and John Roby Jr. third. Betz fell to a ninth place finish.
The bomber D Main wrapped up the night’s racing program with Chad Zuver looking to be on the way to an easy win. A late caution tightened the field and on the restart, Joe Smith passed Zuver to take the lead. Zuver fell off the pace and retired to the pits turning the easy victory over to Smith. John Clark finished second and Mike Patton third.
This coming Saturday is the 14th annual Barney Oldfield Race paying $3,900 to win for the UMP late models. The sportsman/trucks and bombers will also be in action.
