Zack Olger from St. Johns, Michigan set a blistering pace in front of the UMP Late Model Feature at Oakshade Raceway on his way to posting his first feature win of the year.
Multiple incidents involving, Dusty Moore, Kris Patterson, Josh Steinacker, Greg Martin, Aaron Scott and Jeff Clapp early on in the race resulted in a series of complete restarts.
Olger took command after starting on the outside of the front row and began to pull away once some green flag laps were run. A few more cautions kept Olger from getting too far away from Rick Delong and Hillard Miller in the first half of the race.
Duane Chamberlain worked his way up to second and began to close on the race leader. Chamberlain’s progress was halted on lap 19 when he slammed into the backstretch wall after coming off turn two a little two high. Chamberlain limped his way back to the pits relinquishing second back to Delong.
Another caution on lap 20 for debris tightened up the field for a final time with Delong and Rusty Schlenk behind Olger. Schlenk took second place away from Delong on the restart, but Delong battled back to the inside. The battle for second continued all the way to the checkered flag with Olger leading the entire distance.
Schlenk edged out Delong for a second place finish. Casey Noonan was fourth and Hillard Miller finished fifth. Kris Patterson who was involved in an early caution and went to the pits, came all the way back through the field to finish sixth.
After trouble for the second week in a row in the UMP Late Model division, Josh Steinacker hopped into his UMP Sportsman and continued his dominance of the past few weeks in that division.
Steinacker started on the outside of the second row and passed Matt Dornan on lap two to take the lead for good. Ray Klawitter hung with the 83 car of Steinacker for most of the race, but could not get close enough to put much pressure on the race leader.
Steinacker went on to capture his sixth consecutive UMP Sportsman Feature win and continued to whittle away at Rusty Schlenk’s points lead.
Schlenk started in the middle of the pack and got by Klawitter to finish second. Steve Mills had a solid top five run finishing in fourth with Rob Liaeff fifth.
Jake Rendel elected to take the Racer’s Connection Tail Start Challenge and started at the rear of the 20-lap Bomber A Main in an effort to try to win an extra $615 if he could manage to get through the entire field and pick up the victory.
Meanwhile, Dan Dippman and Garry Domoe put on a heated battle for the lead for most of the event with Dippman leading in the early stages.
Dippman pulled away from Domoe a little bit after Domoe had a bit of difficulty navigating around a lapped car. Once Domoe got by the lapped car, he quickly closed back in on Dippman’s rear bumper.
Around lap 16, Domoe got to the inside of Dippman in turn two and as the two driver’s exited the corner, Domoe slid up into the 17 car of Dippman forcing Dippman into the backstretch wall. Both drivers continued on with Domoe taking the lead and receiving a warning from the flagman.
A late caution set up one last chance for Dippman to try to reclaim the lead from Domoe, but Domoe held him off and began to pull away on his way to the checkered flag. Dippman hung on to finish second ahead of last week’s A Main winner, Keven Hanford.
Harold Reiger finished fourth with Tom Ordway, the Bomber points leader, finishing fifth. Tail Start Challenger contender Jake Rendel ended up eighth.
Scot Mills led the early running of a crash filled Bomber B Main with Chris Williams closing in.
Williams was third on a lap five restart and dove past Bob Rendel for second and then put the pressure on Mills for the lead.
Mills was able to hold off the challenge, but another caution on lap eight allowed Williams to get another good restart to the inside of Mills.
The two drivers battled all the way to the finish with Williams taking the victory by the nose of his car. Bob Rendel finished third behind Mills with Rich Ruff and Wade Rick rounding out the rest of the top five finishers.
Not to be outdone, the Bomber C Main produced another exciting finish on a great night of racing action at Oakshade Raceway.
Jeff Krotzer and Ron Leonard put on quite a show at the front of the pack for much of the race with side by side racing for the lead. A couple of caution flags helped Krotzer keep the 16 car of Leonard behind him, but Kyle Light who started at the back of the field was working his way into contention.
Light was up to fourth by lap four and shortly after that was battling with Leonard for the lead. The two drivers continued that battle with Leonard up high and Light to his inside all the way until the final corners. Light drove it in deep in turn three on the final lap and slid up in front of Leonard in turn four. Leonard dove back to the inside making it a drag race to the finish line.
Kyle Light managed to hang on those final few yards to pick up the victory in another side by side finish with Leonard settling for a very close second. Krotzer held on to finish third with Trevar Buter and Gary Fledkamp finishing fourth and fifth respectively.
Exciting racing action continues on Saturday, August 19 at Oakshade Raceway on B&P Wrecking Night with UMP Late Models, UMP Sportsmen and Bombers. Gates open at 4pm with racing starting at 7pm.
