Tight point battles in the UMP Sportsman and UMP Bomber classes at Oakshade Raceway continue into the final couple weeks of competition. The top three in the UMP Bomber points all suffered bad luck in their feature event and Bruce Stuart dominated the UMP Sportsman feature to win his fourth of the season.
Stuart started on the pole and fended off a challenge from point leader Mike Jessen early in the race. Eventually Stuart was able to extend his advantage over Jessen while a great battle for third between Tim Line and Joe Derbeck ensued. The only caution of the 20-lap race was for a spin by Richard Patton on lap 15. A couple laps after the restart, Line passed Jessen to take over second but could not reel in Stuart who led the entire distance. Line’s second place finish got him five points closer to Jessen who finished right behind in third. Bob Gregory, the point leader at the beginning of last week’s events before posting a DNF in the feature, bounced back with a fourth place finish this week. Tim Fisher finished fifth.
The most eventful race of the night was the UMP Bomber A Main. Curt Lancaster led the first two laps until point leader Jeff Foks closed and took over the lead on lap three. Foks continued to lead until he caught some slower traffic running at the back of the pack. It appeared as if Foks misjudged the speed of that traffic that was running much slower than the leader. Foks had to check up which caused him to spin on lap 11. That brought out the caution flag and sent Foks to the tail.
Terry Rushlow, second in points, took over the race lead and seemed to be poised to either take over the point lead or greatly close the gap if he could hang on and win. Unfortunately for him, he slowed exiting turn four with the white flag in his sites. Rushlow cut left into the infield to keep from getting run over allowing Adam Noonan to take over the race lead. Noonan went on to take the checkered flag and at the same time further back in the field, Donovan Paskan lost control on the backstretch. Paskan spun and collected Foks and Richard Riffe in a hard crash. Jeff Geis, third in points, looked to gain a lot with Foks and Rushlow unable to finish. Geis finished third in the race just behind Lancaster, but post-race inspection revealed that his car had an illegal intake manifold which resulted in his disqualification. Dave “Gumby” Golembiewski Jr. got credit with a third place finish in the race followed by Amy Bernard and Chris Sands.
Taylor Dippman had a clean sweep in the Hornets with a heat race win and an impressive feature win. She grabbed the lead on the first lap of the race after starting last. It was her second feature win of the year. William Cundick finished second ahead of Drew Smith. Last week’s feature winner Maverick Wright survived a close call earlier in the race which put him near the back of the pack and fought back to finish fourth with Harley Sutton finishing fifth.
A newcomer to the UMP Sport Compact division remained undefeated with his second feature win in his second visit to Oakshade Raceway. Chad Tomczak from Sparta, Michigan, started deep in the field and took the lead at the drop of the green flag. Skyler Antonelli survived a scare when he almost got hooked into the outside wall at the end of the backstretch while battling in the top three. Antonelli chased the car up the track and held on to it, but lost a lot of ground to Tomczak. Tomczak made it look easy for the second week in a row and picked up the convincing win. Jeff Wells had to settle for second after being unable to catch Tomczak. Antonelli posted a third place finish followed by Regan Ford and Stephanie Miller.
Brad Brehm led the first five laps of the UMP Bomber B Main. Steve Morris appeared to take the lead on lap six, but a caution on the same lap gave Brehm a slight reprieve. Then Brehm got sideways in turn two just after the restart and fell back a few positions allowing Morris to take the lead. Todd Silvey followed Morris past Brehm and began to challenge for the lead. Silvey stayed in contact with Morris until the final lap when Silvey got held up behind some lapped traffic. That allowed Morris to take the easy victory. Silvey settled for second. Perry Cox finished third with Duane Fletcher and Shaun Sharp rounded out the rest of the top five.
Next week, the UMP Late Models are going topless! The roofs will be taken off for the evening’s competition. In addition to UMP Late Model, UMP Sportsman, UMP Bomber, Hornet and UMP Sport Compact action, the annual Celebrity Charity Race will take place as well on Saturday, September 15. NBC 24’s Norm Van Ness will attempt to beat the local celebrity competition for his second consecutive win. Gates open at 4pm with racing at 7pm. There is also a 200 lap enduro race scheduled for Sunday afternoon, September 16. Gates open at 12pm and the enduro race begins at 2pm. General admission is just $3 for the Sunday afternoon event.
