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Results July 9th

Results -Auto City Outdoor Event Center 7/9/2016

Racing returned to Auto City and it was a full day of sunshine, classic cars, race cars qualifying, rain, back to sunshine and then racing at Auto City this past Saturday night.

The UAW/United Way started the day out with their annual cruise and classic car show on the grounds of Auto City and with the sun shining all the classics looked great. Then the race cars started arriving at the track for the evenings racing. Everything was looking good when the gates opened as the sun was shining and temps weren’t that bad. Qualifying started out with the Top Speed Modifieds having a field of 21 cars on the card and the number 1 qualifier was Blake Rowe from Ortonville in the #57. The V.R.O.A. vintage mod’s returned for their second appearance of the year and were having their Mid-Season Championship this night and Terry Byrne in the #50 set fast time in his 1933 Plymouth. The Herald Pure Stocks were last to qualify and after all 18 cars were done, and it was a repeat for the top spot as Andrew Burton in the #05 set fast time.

So everything seemed like we were on track to start racing at 7:00pm, but Mother Nature wanted to get in on the action too as it started to cloud up, sprinkle, rain, then downpour. As the spectators went to gain shelter and the staff checking weather ap’s and looking like the possibility of a cancelation. Auto City did not give up. The rains started to lessen, some of the teams in the pits brought out their tow vehicles and other rides to drive around to see if they could dry the track. And then the rain turned back into sprinkles, then stopping and letting the sun break thru the clouds to assist in the drying of the track. Then the Top Speed and V.R.O.A. Mod’s came out to continue drying the ½ mile and it all started to come together. The Herald Pure Stocks took care of drying the ¼ Mile and next thing you knew. We were ready to go racing. After the hour delay, the fans and drivers were ready for action.

The V.R.O.A Mod’s started the night out with their heat races. And it was Shawn Simon driving the #59 who took the win in his 1937 Ford. In the second heat, it was Tom Boorsma in the #21 taking the checkered in his 1935 Ford.

Next up was the Herald Pure Stock heat races and it was the active Army soldier of Michael Hayes in the #12 getting his first ever win and who always fly’s the American flag from his car.

The second heat went to the #87 of Shane Fogarty.

The third and final heat was the fast qualifiers heat and that win went to Tony Williams in the #97 with fast qualifier Andrew Burton finishing second in the #05.

The feature races were next with the Top Speed Mod’s starting it off with their 70 lapper. 21 Mod’s took to the track and with some very stout competition. But Jordan Pruitt took the lead early and never looked back as he led the field in the black #8 weaving through lapped traffic trying to put distance between him and second place finisher Bobby Heyink in the #5 and Travis Eddy in the #78 who finished third. The top three ran that way for pretty much the whole 70 laps. The mod feature did run caution free.

The Herald Pure Stocks took to the track next for their feature. Fast qualifier Andrew Burton had to start in the 9th position due to the invert.

When the green flag flew, there was action from the front to the back with 3, almost 4 wide racing. With Shane Fogarty in the #87 leading the way, many other drivers were jocking for position, on lap 2 coming out of turn two, Jeff West (?#?3w?), who was up near the front, got crossed up and with the field coming at him, a few got bunched up. But Tom Loggie in the #71 had nowhere to go and ran head on into Jeff. Both drivers were OK, but both cars were done for the night.

When they went back to green flag racing, Shane was being challenged by Josh Delong (who was subbing for Randy Clayton Jr.) in the #54 and J.T. Clayton in the #55 and Andrew Burton in the #05 were all battling for position. Josh did make the pass on Shane and behind him, coming out of turn four on lap ten, Andrew Burton spun and looked like something under the hood may have caught on fire. Andrew took the car to the pits not to return. Going into the feature being the points leader, that is not the way he wanted to finish the race.

They went back to green flag racing and the battle was on between team-mates J.T. Clayton and Josh Delong as they raced side by side for many laps without touching each other with J.T. on the outside the whole time. And J.T. was itching for that first feature win, but just could not get the fender across the finish line first. So the win went to Josh Delong, second to J.T. and third was Shane Fogarty, Tony Williams in the #97 who had a flat earlier, but raced back up to finish 4th. And coming in 5th was Tiffany Lechota in the ?#?T24? who was back in the drivers seat after taking a couple years off.

The V.R.O.A. vintage mod’s feature was next on the bill and with a variety of makes and models. On lap 14 of the 25 lapper, the #2 of Randy Pierson (who was leading) and the #20 of Don Deyman got together and both spun. Randy was awarded his first place spot back and Don was sent to the rear. But it was the #50 of Terry Byrne working his way up to the front and bringing home the checkered flag. Last feature winner at Auto City Tom Boorsma in the #21 finished second.

The Auto City figure 8 race capped off the evening. Tim Shann in the #22 lead the way to the green flag and once the field were racing, there was all kinds of action on the track. With the earlier rains, it made for a muddy infield area so if any of the drivers go off into that, it made it quite challenging. But it again was Josh Delong working his way to the front and stretching the lead. But battling for second and third were Tony Williams and multi-time Figure 8 Champion Chad Lamson. In the final laps, Chad finally got by the #97 of Tony and tried his hardest to make the last lap pass on Josh, but Chad just ran out of laps to make it work and had to settle for second and Tony Williams coming in third.

Racing returns to Auto City on Saturday, July 23rd with the Lane Automotive Sprints, the MCR Drawf Cars in the “Tommy Bowles Memorial”, Mini Cups and the Herald Pure Stocks all in action. Make plans now to come on out to Auto City!!!

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