Jackson Rules the UPM Modified Action at Ocala Speedway
by Dave Westerman
Lakeland's Darren "Action" Jackson didn't let a Friday the 13th with a fullmoon bother him as he took advantage of a late mistake by the leaders to claim victory in race number six of the United Promoters Modified Tour Friday night at Ocala Speedway.
UPM points leader Dwayne Dempsey of St. Petersburg led the 23 car field of Modifieds in time trials with a clocking of 15.265 seconds and drew the fourth position on the grid for the start. Troy Robinson set second quick time in his "Batmobile" and started from the outside pole.
But it was polesitter Gary Southard of Bronson getting the early jump on the field with Robinson, Dempsey and Jeremy Gerstner settling in behind him.
They rode that way until Robinson got into the back of Southard's machine, spinning him in turn three on lap seven. Dempsey, Gerstner, and Alan McCafferty all got together avoiding Southard with MacCafferty's car doing a balancing act on top of the Dempsey and Gerstner machines. Robinson was placed at the tail of the field while Southard was again placed at the head ofthe pack. McCafferty went to the pits to replace a flat tire and do some body repair while both Dempsey and Gerstner continued in second and third.
Despite quite a bit of rear sheet metal damage, Dempsey was now glued to Southard's bumper as the green came back out, only to see action slowed again on lap eleven by a multi car tangle in turn four with Bobby Dixon being penalized to the rear of the field.
Dempsey continued to apply the pressure and slipped by Southard on lap 13 just before the caution flew for Mark Emberson's spin in turn four.
Dempsey continued to set the pace, still shadowed by Southard as caution flew twice more before the half-way mark, on lap 20 for smoke from John Kahl's machine and then on lap 24 as Mike Bennett spun into the infield after having to get hard on the brakes when Kevin Durden's car suddenly slowed in turn one.
At the mid point of the race, Dempsey led Southard, Jeremy Gerstner, and David Baxley. But all eyes were watching three cars that had been making steady progress through the field. Darren Jackson had started 14th but was now fifth. After a terrible qualifying effort that saw him start 21st, Mike Johnson had now moved into seventh with original outside pole man Robinson in tow coming from the rear of the field.
Things were beginning to get quite "testy" all through the field with a lot of "bumpin' and bangin'" going on and Robinson's drive back to the front was thwarted when he spun in turn two on lap 28, having to go to the back of the field again.
Dempsey was beginning to assert himself out front, pulling away from Southard by a good margin until John Gerstner's car slowed with a flat tire in turn four to bring out yet another caution on lap 34.
It would be lap 40 where things would get somewhat controversial. Greg Nordstrom spun his car in turn four creating a huge cloud of tire smoke. Nordstrom re-fired his car and continued as UPM officials debated as to whether to throw a caution flag.
No caution was displayed, but as leader Dempsey approached the smoke, he backed off the gas. Southard dove low and re-took the lead completing lap 41. Nordstrom then stopped his car underneath the flag stand for some unknown reason a lap later to bring out the yellow, but he would restart his car and join the field at the back.
Now it was Southard back out front followed by Dempsey, Jeremy Gerstner, Jackson and Baxley. On the restart, Jackson blew by Gerstner to take third while Dempsey was pulling out all the stops to get by Southard again. However, Mike Wilson took a spin a lap later with help from Mike Johnson to bring out the tenth caution of the race.
Southard and Dempsey pulled away on the restart as it appeared Jackson would easily settle for a third place finish, already "more that he had hoped for."
With two laps to go, Dempsey made a daring low side move out of turn four. Southard slammed the door shut and both cars went flying into the infield with Southard eventually doing a full spin in turn one to bring out the yellow once again.
UPM officials deemed the contact simply "hard racing" but were forced to penalize both Southard and Dempsey to the rear of the restart line-up.
Jackson found himself in the lead and made no mistakes over the final two laps to take his first win in the UPM Series. In fact, in six races, there have now been six different winners. Jackson earned $1200 for his efforts.
Despite battling a slipping transmission, Jeremy Gerstner held on for s solid second place finish while Ocala WIND-FM Modified point leader David Baxley drove a smooth, calculating race and checkered third.
Clermont's John Foerg got freight-trained early in the race but steadily worked his way back to fourth while Troy Robinson came from the rear twice to finish fifth.
Chris Fadling, Bobby Dixon, Mike Wilson, Mike Johnson and Southard rounded out the top ten with Dempsey coming back to 11th at the finish.
Fans were treated to yet another great performance by the Diamond H Air & Heat Sportsman cars in their 20-lap event.
Tommy Roberts took the early lead as the rest of the field jockeyed for position behind him. Doc Batson broke free of the pack and was able to get by Roberts for the lead on lap four. From there Batson dominated the action, leading by over a straightaway at the checker.
William Edwards broke free of the pack along with Roger Damron late in the race but Batson was in a different county by then and took his first win of the year at Ocala Speedway. Edwards continues to knock on victory lane's door but had to settle for second again. Damron, whose car was badly damaged in a crash last week, borrowed Rob Cooper's mount and drove it to third followed by Roberts and point leader Tom Posavec.
Rick Sirmans had a pretty easy time of it in winning his fifth Mini Stock feature of the year, but the story of this race was a scary turn one incident on lap 15.
Clint Foley and Larry Goolsby were battling nose to tail for second place going into turn one when rookie driver Randy Futch pulled out of the pit area directly into the racing groove.
Foley, with nowhere to go, plowed into Futch's car with Goolsby hitting Foley's machine from behind. Both the Foley and Futch machines were too badly damaged to continue while Goolsby lined up behind Sirmans for the restart despite some major re-arrangement of the front end of his car.
Sirmans cruised the remaining five laps to take the win while Goolsby brought his battered machine home second. Jeff Stalnaker, Sr. just held off point leader Marlon Durbin at the line for third with Morris Richardson rounding out the top five.
So many K-Country Street Stocks checked into the pits that the field was split into two 15-lap feature events.
The first race proved to be a real surprise as Steve Mooers, taking over the wheel of the Camaro that had been driven by Don Maynard, drove from the outside pole and led every lap for his first-ever victory at Ocala.
Point leader Mark Mitchell came from 11th at the start up to challenge Mooers for the lead but he could never make the pass. Bobby Taylor had his best run of the year in third right behind Mitchell with "Ocala" Paul Fletcher and Tom Fralish completing the top five.
Young Kyle Maynard lined up on the outside pole for the second K-County Street Stock feature and led all the way for his fifth feature win of the season.
It wasn't easy as Pete Close, Jr. threw every trick in the book at Maynard before settling for second place. Doug Webster was third yet again, the sixth time he's finished in the show position this year. David Chastain and Tommy Roberts rounded out the top five.
Until four weeks ago, defending Four Cylinder Stock champion Ric Fort had been held winless... now he has four wins in a row.
Fort grabbed the lead from Harry Drier on lap two and held off repeated challenges by Rick Kuhn as their pair of Toyota Celicas ran 1-2 for the second consecutive week.
Kuhn's second place showing coupled with Tom Ellis' "unlucky" Friday the 13th 13th place finish, saw Kuhn take over the class points lead.
Joel Byall, Dan Sanderson and Michael Stalnaker completed the top five.
OFFICIAL FINISHES - OCALA SPEEDWAY - 6/13/03
UPM MODIFIED TOUR (50 Laps):
1) Darren Jackson #7D 2) Jeremy Gerstner #70 3) David Baxley #64 4) John Foerg #1 5) Troy Robinson #0 6) Chris Fadling #29 7) Bobby Dixon #205 8) Mike Wilson #79 9) Mike Johnson #19 10) Gary Southard #39 11) Dwayne Dempsey #6 12) Mark Emberson #34 13) Paul Combast #90 14) Greg Nordstrom #06 15) John Gerstner #77 16) Larry Martin #07 17) Kevin Durden #56 18) Mike Bennett #14 19) Dan Hammerbeck #30 20) John Kahl #23 21) Hoot Flynn #57 22) Alan McCafferty #32 23) Wayne Kissam #7
DIAMOND H AIR & HEAT SPORTSMAN (20 Laps):
1) Doc Batson #4 2) William Edwards #08 3) Roger Damron #98 4) Tommy Roberts #7 5) Tom Posavec #01 6) Patrick Mennenga #16 7) Frank Buchanan #07 8) Travis Nichols #2 9) John Carter #86 10) Bob Masciarelli #72 11) Charles Hornbeak #67 12) Kyle Maynard #0 13) Kathy Ray #63 14) Tommy Brakeman #20 15) Jim Higginbotham #76 16) Big John Smith #31 DNS Ray Wheeler #74 DNS Wally Schneider #57
MINI STOCKS (20 Laps):
1) Rick Sirmans #05 2) Larry Goolsby #27 3) Jeff Stalnaker, Sr. #8 4) Marlon Durbin #72 5) Morris Richardson #30 6) Greg Valdez #60 7) Jake Garver #10 8) Bob Delmastro #33 9) Clint Foley #7 10) A.J. Schreier #98 11) Randy Futch #11 12) Rick Bartridge #13A DNS Al Buker #5
K-COUNTRY STREET STOCK - FIRST FEATURE (15 Laps):
1) Steve Mooers #15 2) Mark Mitchell #71 3) Bobby Taylor #66 4) Paul Fletcher #94 5) Tom Fralish #1 6) Doc Batson #X 7) Ritchie Smith #121 8) Sid Mosbrucker #62 9) Mike Rosa #76 10) Paul Fletcher #28 11) Dave Danielson #70 12) Dan Tremblay #0 13) Gordon Cade #21X 14) Tim Shull #79 15) Harold Edwards #65
K-COUNTRY STREET STOCK - FEATURE TWO (15 Laps):
1) Kyle Maynard #07 2) Pete Close, Jr. #08 3) Doug Webster #72 4) David Chastain #17 5) Tommy Roberts #44 6) Kenny Abney #6X 7) Jamie Dunn #24 8) Bobby Carter #99 9) Rick Bass #21 10) Krystal Batson #B4 11) Mike Fiddia #41 12) Dot Kelly #38 13) Estle Morrow #02 14) William O'Quinn #09
FOUR CYLINDER STOCKS (20 Laps):
1) Ric Fort #2 2) Rick Kuhn #47 3) Joel Byall #40 4) Dan Sanderson #7 5) Michael Stalnaker #8 6) Harry Drier #61 7) Harold Barup #3 8) Steve Moulton #41 9) Dennis Harden #17 10) Justin Durbin #34 11) John DeGeorge #11 12) Jeff Pittsley #20 13) Tom Ellis #31 14) Kurtis Mitchell #00 15) Brooke Driggers #25 DQ Joey Durbin #38
