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| BEAUCHEMIN DOMINATES SARA 100 AT DESOTO | by Terry Clem
BRADENTON, FL (KNS)- Rain washed out qualifying for the SARA series at Desoto Saturday night. The starting line-up was based on the point’s standings with Bobby Beauchemin getting to start on the pole position and led wire-to-wire for the win.  Starting in the front is always nice, on this night it was downright necessary as incidents took out or damaged at least eight cars before the first lap was completed. Two complete restarts were needed to get the first lap in the books.
In the first incident, the Brent O’Neill went into turn one and his throttle stuck and he couldn’t let off the gas and went hard into turn one. While everyone else was backing off the gas, O’Neill went flying on the low side through turns one and two and couldn’t avoid running into Ronnie Skipper and causing a pileup, which collected six others. O’Neill, Skipper and Keith Lilley got hooked up and on top of each other when Lilley’s car burst into flames. Lilley’s car was engulfed in flames while the fire and rescue were there quickly to assist. While the rescue squad worked to put out the fire and thought they had it extinguished, it ignited again shortly. Skipper’s and O’Neill’s car also sustained major damage. All drivers were able to emerge and no injuries occurred. The red flag was brought out as the cleanup lasted over 30 minutes and cars were unhooked, towed away, worked on and the tracked cleaned.
After the cars got lined up for a restart, the green flag flew again. Once again before one lap could be completed, David Logan went into turn three, spun and slammed into the wall hard. Luckily no other cars were collected and the delay wasn’t as long as the previous yellow flag. Finally the green flew again and the race was on. Beauchemin wasted no time as he took the lead on the first lap, with Wayne Morris, Jason Boyd, and Joe Sumansky quickly settling into line behind him.
On a lap 19 restart, Jason Boyd went high into turn three to try a pass for the lead but couldn’t make it work. He stayed on Beauchemin’s rear bumper until he spun on the front stretch. This did not bring out a caution but he did lose many positions and was out of contention for the night. While running on the third spot, the 77x spun on the backstretch to bring out a caution.
On the restart at the halfway point, Beauchemin was still out in front. The top four of Beauchemin, Morris, Sumansky and George Murphy were pulling away from the pack and were nose-to-tail until a yellow brought out by a Dave Snodgrass spin in turn three on lap 75. On the restart, Beauchemin was able to pull away slightly until Morris steppe don the gas. In the turns, Morris would catch Beauchemin, but on the straight-aways, Morris would lose ground. By the end Beauchemin was able to pull away to a four-car length as just dominated the whole night and padded his points lead.
In the Sportsman division, Gus Coorssen (41) was able to take the lead on lap 19 of the 25-lap feature and went on to take the checkers. Courssen started in the seventh position and slowly moved towards the front. On Lap 17 he was able to move into the top three and moved up to the lead after the two leaders, Wallace Ramsey (38) and Lonnie Miller (98), tangled on the backstretch and both were sent to the rear. Following Coorssen at the checkers were Dale Reigle (5) and Hal Vickery (31).
Jason Williamson (70) dominated for his first win in the Open Wheel Modified feature as he led wire-to-wire for the win. Pat Nanny (60) was able to take over second place on lap two but went sideways on lap four and slipped back several spots. After that, it was Williamson, Jr. Wade (2x) and David Hartin (2) who took the checkers as the race was called after 18 laps because of the many yellow flags.
In the Pure Stocks, Jason Esposito (23) started on the pole and took the early lead. He was able to keep the lead until lap 12 when Stewart Bradshaw (68) went low in turn four to take the lead. On lap 15 Bradshaw gave up the lead to Joe Wengerd (30) who took the lead in the same spot in turn four. Wengard went on to take the checkers with Bobby Jansen (20) and John Clouser (52) rounding out the top three.
In the mini stock division, the #30 was able to take the lead shortly after halfway and hang on for the win. On lap 12, #30 went to the outside groove to take the lead from #05. After that it was all #34 as he was able to open up leads of up to four car lengths. Rounding out the top three were the #34 and #05.
In the fan favorite, School bus Figure 8, Bill McCleod was able to make a late race pass for the lead hold on for the win. This race had it all, a few hard meetings at the “X”, a rollover by the black #3 bus of Kenny King and numerous “near misses” at the “X”. The #88 bus started last in the field, as he had won the previous race, and was in fourth place by lap two. By lap five he was in the lead and was able to hold it until lap 21 when he and the #28 had an untimely and very hard meeting at the “X”. McCleod then took over the lead and avoided a few more near misses to take the checkers.
In a very patriotic sense, every driver interviewed all night long wanted to thank the fans for coming out, to think about what happened on September 11, 2001 and to thank God that we live in the USA, where we can do the things we enjoy.
(KARNAC.com welcomes its newest staff member Terry Clem)
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