Saturday night at Citrus County Speedway, with the Gulfcoast Modifieds in town,local favorite Curtis Neumann showed the meaning of “home track “ advantage.
In qualifying, Neumann set fast time, with a lap of 14.146. Right behind was Wayne Jefferson with a time of 14.184. After clearing tech, Neumann drew for the inversion, and pulled a zero, starting the field heads up, by qualifying times.
The field rolled onto the speedway for the start with Neumann and Jefferson on the front row, followed by Chet Senokossoff, John Sappriacone Jr, Sean McLaughlin, Alan McCafferty, Eric Rudd, Teddy Nelson, Chris Escott, and Robbie Cooper filling the top ten starting spots.
The racers were anxious to roll into the 50 lap feature, and the start had to be waved off a couple of times before the race got underway. In one start attempt, several cars got together in turn 1, causing damage to several cars. The 98 of point leader Robbie Cooper was damaged badly enough to end Coopers night.
The race fnally got under way, and Neumann powered to the lead, followed by Jefferson. Apparently, the pre-start incidents had heated up some tempers, and it began to show, as very few of the drivers had much patience left, causing the race to be slowed by several cautions.
A lap 17 restart had the cars of McCafferty and Sappriacone made hard contactin turn 1, ending the evening for both drivers. The top two were unfazed by the action behind them, and continued to have a very god race for the lead. Jefferson appeared to be slightly better entering the turns, and Neumann seemed to have the advantage driving off the corners.
At the halfway mark, Neumann had opened a lead of several car lengths over Jefferson, who in turn held a lead of several lengths over third place Senokossoff. Several more cautions for minor incidents slowed the pace of the race, and allowed the top runners to bunch up. Lap 32 has Senokossoff slowing, and giving up third spot, a tough break after racing hard. Neumann went on to take the win, his first in the Gulfcoast Modified Series.
Jefferson was a close second, followed by Sean McLaughlin. In the tech area after the race, Neumann commented that he was happy to win on his home track, but he really wants a series win at a track other than Citrus County, to prove that this race wasn’t a fluke. “We have had good runs at other tracks, but just haven’t been able to hit the winners circle yet”, Neumann commented.
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After clearing tech, the results were declared official.
Final Results Gulfcoast Modifieds Citrus County Speedway.
