Old tires were used for the first practice and despite a small push in the centre of the corner and a little loose coming off, the #82 Conbraco Ford was fast and the crew were confident that they had the car to run up front. New tires were mounted and after minor adjustments, Jason piloted the #82 onto the track for the second and final practice session where the push in the centre had been taken care of by the adjustment, however the car still had a very minor loose off condition.
The #82 Del Metals Ford lined up 5th for the first heat race where a good start, produced a move into 3rd at the completion of the 1st lap. The #86 had the lead for the next two laps until the #3 got a nose inside to take the position with Jason tight on his tail to follow into 2nd closely followed by the #8. On the 5th lap it was the top three nose to tail, 10 car lengths ahead of the #56. Despite Jason giving gentle bumps into the back the #3 for the remaining 5 laps, the #3 held onto the position with the #82 in 2nd followed by the #8.
Jason lined up 3rd beside the #86 and behind the �Elliott� front row of David in the #37 and father Gary in the #36. Another good start quickly moved the #82 past the #36 on the inside into second. After only 5 laps, the first caution came for the #06 who spun by himself in turns 3-4. Two laps later, another caution for the #88 spinning and then again for the #8 who got into the #36 causing a big mess with over 6 cars getting tangled together.
On the restart, it was the #37, #82, #86, #52 and #56 rounding out the top 5. Once again, just a few laps later, the #8, #9 & #88 got together in turn 3 to bring out yet another caution and another long delay caused by fluids on the track only to be followed by yet another caution 3 laps later on lap 15 for the #42, #06 and #36 getting tangled up in turn 3.The Spira Ford was catching the #37 in the centre of the corners at both ends as the #37 was extremely loose on exit compared to Jason who was just a little loose and patiently waiting on the leader to make a mistake.
On lap 17, the #37 got very loose exiting turn #4 and Jason was able to turn under him and begin to challenge for the position. While trying to regain control of his car, the leader came down the track directly in front of the #82 and the rest of the top 5 cars who were running bumper-to-bumper, Jason nudged the back of the #37 on the front stretch and the very minor contact was enough for the leader to spin out in turn one.
The first call by the scorer was that the #82 was to be black flagged for rough driving, the #37 was to go to the back as an accident car and the win due to a time curfew would go to the #56 who was running in 3rd. Shortly after the first call, the scorer decided to go back and give the win to the #37 who was deemed to have had control going across the line, however the black flag to the #82 for causing the caution would still stand putting the #56 into second. The Shaw team, other teams and fans left the track trying to figure out how the #37, who was an involved car with the #82 could maintain his position when the position of the #82 was not maintained, especially if the caution was caused due to another incident that deemed the race complete due to time constraints.
On Tuesday morning, the official word by the track was, upon review, officials determined the race could not be called complete because the halfway mark of 18 laps was not passed. Therefore the race will be completed on Saturday May 17th at 6:00pm prior to qualifying, with a starting line up per the official score sheets at the end of lap 17. Final positions are based on where cars were running at the time of caution, and the restart order adjusted to include accident cars.
This means the #37 and #82 will go to the back of the field as accident cars as will the #44 and #49 who were involved in the turn one accident. Given the fact the race was stopped due to curfew, the completion of the race will be under the same condition, meaning that once 18 green flag laps have been scored (17 are already complete), a caution flag will mean the end of the race. The May 17th line-up for the May 10th Late Model Feature at the start of lap 18 will be:56, 86, 27, 52, 48, 75, 8, 3X, 29, 34, 42, 06, 9, 88, 36, 37, 82, 44, 49, 3, 85.
In other racing news, driver, Dave Hagedorn piloted the #88 mini-stick Mustang to its first heat win and continued the top 10 streak by starting 9th and finishing 8th in the 25 lap feature.
From Ken Spira / Shaw Motorsports
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