Dale-y Double! Dale Jr. wins pair
PICTURES (James MacDonald/Apex One Photo)
1) Jim Dale Jr. in Victory Lane after winning the Castrol Late Model Mid-Season Championship race. Earlier in the night, he won the Schinkels Gourmet Meats Modified Mid-Season championship.
2) Louis Clements No. 3 car turns over after a collision with Randy McKinlay’s No. 14 car, just yards from the finish line on the final lap of the Lube Tech Sport Stock Mid-Season championship race.
SOUTH BUXTON – A packed grandstand at South Buxton Raceway was treated to a Saturday night double feature, courtesy of Jim Dale Jr.
The Shrewsbury native became the first driver to ever win two title races in a single night when he drove to a pair of mid-season championships on Midas Auto Service Experts/Scott Stanley State Farm Insurance Night.
“I’ve won two in a night before, but never on a championship night like this,” he said after winning the Castrol UMP Late Model mid-season race.
About an hour earlier, Dale Jr. was in Victory Lane in the Schinkel’s Gourmet Meats UMP Modified class.
Ironically, Dale Jr. followed the same script en route to his twin wins.
He started in the third position in both races, made outside passes for the lead and continued to drive on the high groove while holding off intense challengers to take the checkered flags.
“I’ve always been able to run high with the modified but I could never make it stick with the late model,” Dale Jr. said, as he virtually drove almost the 50 combined laps of the two features around the top of the 3/8th-mile oval.
“I thought I’d try the high side again with the late model and I found that same cushion, so I stayed up there.”
Dale Jr. took the lead on the eighth lap of the modified feature from Paul DeGoey and held off the Leamington driver over the final 17 laps.
“I tried everything, I ran him up high a few times but there was no getting around him tonight … he held his line and ran a great race,” DeGoey said of Dale Jr., as the pair both have three feature wins on the season.
Leamington drivers Abe Unger and Curtis Coulter finished third and fourth while Merlin’s Brad McLeod, a seven-time champion at South Buxton, pulled off a fifth-place finish in his first race since the 2006 season.
It took Dale Jr. 10 laps to reel in Thamesville’s Dale Glassford for the lead in the late model mid-season championship, making the winning pass on the high side at the flagstand.
For the next 15 laps, Dale Jr. and Glassford put on a classic display of hard, but clean racing.
They brought the capacity crowd to its feet on the last lap as they went door-to-door coming out of turn four but Dale Jr. carried enough momentum on the high side to get his nose across the finish line inches ahead of Glassford.
“That was the hardest I’ve worked for a second place this year,” said Glassford, who was the runnerup in a feature for the third straight race night.
Glassford said he backed off a little with about five laps to go, “just to settle down and get under control.
“I got a run on him on the last lap, I stayed on it and he stayed on it, but he had the momentum up high.
“I don’t mind finishing second in a race like that because it was great for the fans … but I hope my fans stay with me because when we do finally win one, we’re going to celebrate big time,” he smiled.
Dale Jr. tipped his hat to both DeGoey and Glassford.
“They both ran me hard, but they ran me clean,” he said. “I’m sure they could have taken me out … there were a few taps, but nothing dirty.
“It must have been great races for the fans to watch because they were great races to drive in,” he added.
While Dale Jr. was confident he would be a contender in the modified race, he admitted he was surprised to win the late model.
“We’re running our spare modified motor in the late model, so we’re down a lot on power … which was another reason I was glad the high side was working,” Dale Jr. explained.
Blenheim’s Andrew Reaume, Chatham’s Brad Authier and Joe Field, rounded out the top five in the caution-filled 25-lapper.
The winners in the Lube Tech Sport Stock and Garage Restaurant Comp 4 mid-season title-races took similar paths to Victory Lane.
Wallaceburg’s Gary Vyse took advantage of a late crash between the race leaders and went on to win the Sport Stock feature, while Leamington’s Brandon Windsor took an early lead when three top contenders were involved in an early mishap in the Comp 4 title-race.
Vyse was running third with under five laps to go when Todd Wellman and Louis Clements wound up on the infield while battling for the lead.
“You knew it was going to happen, they had been bumping each other all the way around the track,” Vyse said of the battle between the leaders.
“And that battle goes back a few years between those two,” Vyse added.
Clements rallied from an early spin to challenge Wellman for the lead with five laps to go. The two Chatham drivers made heavy contact all the way around the track before spinning onto the infield in front of the flagstand.
“The car was running great, we were running right there with them (Wellman and Clements). We were in the right place when they took each other out,” said Vyse.
Doris Lajeunesse of Essex was second while Dan Smolders of Merlin, a former track champion who was driving for Eric Vanderiviere, was third.
Wellman rebounded for a fourth-place finish.
Clements, however, wasn’t as fortunate. He was involved in a violent collision with Randy McKinlay just yards from the finish line on the final lap.
McKinlay was credited with a fifth-place finish as his car was able to continue across the finish line. Clements was scored eighth as his mangled Monte Carlo wound up on its roof.
The Comp 4 feature needed three complete restarts before the 20-car field could put a lap into the books.
But the complexion of the race changed for good on the second green-flag lap when teammates Denis DeSerrano and Rob Quick of Cottam tangled high in turn four and the third-place car, Nate McNally of Charing Cross, spun out trying to avoid the accident.
This allowed Windsor to take the lead, which he never relinquished over the final 18 laps.
“To win by first feature in a championship race like this, it’s awesome,” said the 20-year-old Windsor.
After taking advantage of the three contenders’ misfortune, Windsor said he just “put the pedal down, tried to find a line to run and keep it under control.
“But that was the longest race I’ve ever run, I couldn’t wait for it to end,” said Windsor, who is in his second year racing full-time.
Steve Bastien of Harrow finished second, while Kingsville’s Norm DeSerrano was third. Denis DeSerrano and McNally rallied for top-five finishes while Quick wound up 12th as he went a couple of laps down with a flat tire.
From Mike Bennett // South Buxton Raceway
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