WAUSEON, OH – Saturday night at Oakshade Raceway was not kind to the track championship point leaders. Point battles tightened up leading into next week’s Season Championship Night. On the flip side, it was a great night for several drivers including Colin Shipley who earned his first DIRTcar UMP Late Model feature win of the season and Dylan Jessen who won his first DCR Graphics Sportsman feature.
Shipley started on the pole of the 25-lap main event. The Weston, Ohio, driver opened a sizeable lead over Steve Kester and appeared to be on cruise control for much of the race. Shipley was able to get through lapped traffic better than his pursuers.
All that was thrown out the window when the caution flag flew just as the white flag was about to come out. That tightened up the field behind the race leader and despite another caution before the checkered flag, Shipley still went on to earn the victory with ease.
Steve Kester was able to hold off a hard-charging Casey Noonan for second with Dusty Moore close behind in fourth. Jake Rendel finished fifth.
Kester’s second-place finish closed him to within 20 points of point leader Devin Shiels who started deep in the feature lineup and ended up seventh.
Berkey, Ohio’s Dylan Jessen saw what Shipley had done in the late model feature, leading flag to flag from the pole, and set out to do the same in the DCR Graphics Sportsman main event. Jessen took the lead from the pole at the start of the race with last week’s feature winner, Ryan Davis, gaining a few spots in the first couple laps to position himself in second.
Ryan would make a last lap bid for the lead working to the inside of Jessen going into turn one. Jessen held his ground and was able to hang on for the feature victory. Roman Brown gained just a bit on point leader Jesse Jones with his third-place finish and winning his heat race earlier in the night. Jones maintains a 41-point advantage over Brown with a fourth place finish. Mike Jessen started last and climbed up to a fifth-place finish.
Adam Lantz continued the trend of pole-sitters leading from flag to flag in the Dominator Super Stock A Main. Lantz was pursued early by Craig Dippman but maintained the lead. Dylan Burt was running in the top five until issues with a lapped car put him into the backstretch wall. Burt continued with no caution but lost a handful of positions.
Trouble for Dominator Super Stock point leader Jake Rendel caused a big pile up with three laps remaining in the 15-lap race. Something appeared to break on Rendel’s car while he was running third. He got sideways in turns three and four and stacked up the field behind him collecting the fourth through eighth place cars. Rendel would retire to the pits a lap later.
Lantz, from Wauseon, Ohio, went on to take his fourth checkered flag of the season with ease after Dippman fell off the pace late in the race. Jeff Foks Jr. and Josh McNicol got by to finish second and third respectively with Dippman limping to fourth. Roscoe Stetten ended up fifth.
Despite not finishing the race, Jake Rendel maintains a 19-point advantage over Scott Hammer who was caught up in the lap 12 pile up but was able to drive back to a seventh-place finish.
Tim Streight was set to start on the pole of the Compact A Main but was unable to start the race. James Stamper moved up to the pole for the start and led much of the event. Near the end of the race Stamper drove in high in turns three and four and got into the frontstretch wall. Toledo, Ohio’s Jeff Wells took advantage and ducked under him for the race lead and his second feature win of the year. Stamper held on to second with point leader Ryan Okuley finishing third. Geoff Wasnick and Megan Elliott were the rest of the top five finishers.
Okuley had some mechanical issues during his heat race earlier in the night and pulled off the track before the finish which put him starting at the rear of the Compact feature. Okuley maintains the biggest point gap going into next week’s championship night with 116 over Wells.
The Chris Mize Memorial Hot Dog Race for the Dominator Super Stocks sponsored by SpeedySponsors.com, Team 1196, A2Z Mobile, A2Z 24 Hour Road Service, Ledyards Lawncare, John Young Racing, G&J Pizza, Oakshade Raceway and the Hammer Down Racing Report pitted drivers John Young versus Alex Krall. Krall stalled on the initial start, but was able to come back and win the event with a time of 2:51.59 seconds.
Oakshade Raceway will host Season Championship Night this coming Saturday for the DIRTcar UMP Late Models, DCR Graphics Sportsman, Dominator Super Stocks and Compacts. Gates will open on at 4pm with hot laps/qualifying at 6pm and racing at 7:15pm. Adult general admission is just $15, ages 6-11 are $5 and kids 5 and under are FREE! Pit passes are $30.
This will mark the final night of points competition for the season but racing action will continue every Saturday night through the month of September except for September 6 which will be the one scheduled off night.
