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| Bruce "Rocketman" Durden Blasts To Victory in Florida Challenge Series | 
A warm and wet Summer afternoon gave way to beautiful weather and a great night of racing at Putnam County Speedway as the track and fans welcomed in the Florida Sprint Car Association and USA Sprints for the first leg of the Florida Challenge Series.
Fans were excited to see two of Putnam County Speedway’s regular drivers joining the fast sprint action tonight as the top drivers from both series battled it out.
The main event featured a heads-up battle between the Stars of the Florida Sprint Car Association and the USA Sprints. This was the first time ever these two organizations had raced on the same night against each other and hopefully will be only the beginning of a long association.
The Main Event Feature race of the night saw the stars of the FSCA and USA sprints lined up on the track for driver introductions. Fans were excited to see Jason Lowe in the #4j and Robby Barris in the #32b who are Putnam modified drivers return to sprint action in this season’s most anticipated sprint race.
Another former Putnam regular Robbie Hager joined the action in his #15 sprint car. Twenty five sprints thundered past the grandstands at the drop of the green flag to a fast paced, multi-position changing race this writer found difficult to keep up with! I felt like I needed four pairs of eyes just to watch this one!
Jason Lowe jumped off to an exciting but short-lived lead until the yellow flag flew for Hager and Jeff Parks in the #95, who spun between turns 3-4. The restart saw the #7x of Mike Love take Lowe’s lead, and in quick succession, the #02 of Gene Lasker and #17d of Bruce Durden passed Lowe.
After contact between Hager and Lowe, Lowe fell back until he took his car into the infield with mechanical problems. Lap 2 saw Mike Love # 7 leading Tighe Schloss in the #8. Love’s reign lasted only four laps as Bruce Durden, Jr. zipped past with Gene Lasker following in hot pursuit.
The yellow flag flew on lap 6 when Tighe Schloss spun in turn 2, giving Lasker the third position behind Durden and Love. Love faded and lap 8 saw Durden leading Lasker, Lee Scrape in the #42, and Tommy Denton in the #X.
Denton passed Scrape on the back stretch of lap 7, and Shane Kriedler in the #52 moved up into the fifth position. Five subsequent caution flags halted the action and shuffled the pack which produced exciting side by side racing especially between Scrape and Kreidler, who swapped positions more than a few times.
Attrition was a major factor as numerous minor incidents shuffled the lineup throughout the 25-lap event.The Track surface was very slippery and hard to get a hold of for the high powered light weight Sprintcars."Rocketman" Bruce Durden # 17 overcame many restarts and lapped traffic to capture the checkers by a comfortable margin over runner-up Gene Lasker # 02.
Tommy Denton # X worked his way through the field to earn a respectable 3rd ahead of Lee Scrape #42 and Shane Kreidler # 52 in 4th and 5th.They were tracked by Mike Love # 7 from Ocala in 6th.Bringing home 7th was "Thunderfoot" Bob Schaeffer #22 followed by the # 32 of Larry Pickett in 8th.Finishing 9th was the FSCA car of Al Kaluznika #56 chased by hometown favorite Robbie Barris # 32b rounding out the top 10.
Comments through the stands were enthusiastic about this Special Match Race and fans stated that they hoped these two series will return to Putnam County Speedway for another Florida Challenge Series Event in the near future.
The next USA Sprints Race is this next weekend August 14th at Orange County Raceway in Bithlo Florida. Call Lou at the Track 321-377-4296 for more information or visit the USA Sprints website at www.usasprints.com
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