Rusty Schlenk continued his dominance on a hot and humid night of racing at Oakshade Raceway Saturday night winning his sixth UMP Late Model Feature of the year.
Casey Noonan started on the pole of the Raceway Energy sponsored UMP Late Model Feature and immediately took the lead at the drop of the green flag. Noonan began to pull away from Greg Martin in the opening laps.
Rusty Schlenk started ninth and quickly reeled in Noonan for the race lead. Schlenk closed the deal for the lead on lap 10 and then started to open up his advantage.
It was the second consecutive week the UMP Late Model Feature ran caution free with a lot of great racing action throughout the field.
Schlenk smoked the competition with a half track advantage over second place Casey Noonan at the finish. Justin Paxton moved up after starting 12th and got by Hillard Miller to finish third. Ronnie Perrine Jr. finished fifth.
Schlenk has been comfortably in the Oakshade Raceway UMP Late Model points lead as well as in the UMP Sportsman points lead, but Josh Steinacker has been closing the Sportsman points gap the past few weeks.
Steinacker, having won the past three UMP Sportsman Features at Oakshade, drew a pole starting position for the feature on Saturday.
With Steinacker leading, Rusty Schlenk was working his way toward the front when a flat tire sent him spinning as he came off turn two on the third lap. Luckily for Schlenk, the rest of the field made it by without contact. Schlenk then proceeded to bring his car back to the pits for service and had the tire changed before the race resumed. He rejoined the field at the back of the pack for the restart.
Chris Keller moved up to second and both he and Steinacker pulled away from the rest of the competitors. Keller eventually got close enough to start putting pressure on Steinacker for the lead, but then the yellow flag came out after Jason Smith spun with six laps to go.
Steinacker got a good restart and Keller never could close in enough to make bid for the lead giving Steinacker his fourth UMP Sportsman Feature win in a row and his fifth of the year.
Steve Mills had a strong third place finish behind Keller. Schlenk worked all the way back up through the entire field to salvage a fourth place finish just ahead of Mike Jessen.
Rob Anderzack led most of the Bomber A Main in an attempt to get his first A Main win of the year. Kevin Hanford, Dan Dippman and Jim Scout ran just behind Anderzack for much of the race as they tried to find away around the leader.
Jake Rendel, second in Oakshade Bomber points when the night began, was up in the top five battling until he and Dippman got hooked together which resulted in Rendel spinning down the backstretch and into the infield which did not bring out the caution flag.
Anderzack held on to the lead for as long as he could until Jim Scout eventually got around the 8A car shortly before the conclusion of the race. It was Scouts fifth Bomber A Main win of the year and further tightens and already heated Bomber points battle with Tom Ordway and Jake Rendel.
Anderzack held on to finish second ahead of Tom Ordway, Kevin Hanford and Ron Tolles. Dan Dippman would have finished fifth, but he was penalized for contact with Hanford that sent Hanford spinning across the finish line at the checkered flag.
Rookie driver Dean Thompson shot out to a big lead early in the Bomber B Main after starting on the pole.
Danny Hogrefe closed the gap and put the pressure on Thompson. The leaders came up on a lapped car going into turn three on the final lap. Thompson, still with the lead, dove to the inside as Hogrefe darted to the outside of the lapped car. Hogrefe went in a little to fast and had to check up allowing Thompson to go on to his first ever feature win.
BJ Gregory finished third behind Hogrefe who managed to hold on to second. Cody Tredway had another good finish in fourth with Dustin Sauter rounding out the top five.
Wade Rick was another driver trying to win from the pole. Rick appeared to be well on his way, but Kyle Light who started near the back had the advantage of some cautions in the Bomber C Main to be able to close up behind Rick in second.
The two drivers put on a heated battle for the lead with Light diving to the inside and edging ahead in the corners, but Rick maintained his momentum and edged ahead on the straightaways.
Light made one last ditch effort to the inside of Rick coming off turn four on the final lap, but it wasn’t enough as Wade Rick was just able to hold him off to pick up the victory.
Terry Rushlow finished third followed by Jim Plotts and Corrina Belcher.
Oakshade Raceway will host another American Late Model Series program paying $2000 to the winner of the UMP Late Model Feature on Saturday, August 5. UMP Sportsmen and Bombers will also be back in racing action with the gates opening at 4pm and racing at 7pm.
