IT'S TIME TO RACE!!

May 17, 2008 Jeff Matthews wins Open Wheel Modifieds at Ocala Speedway BJ Cavin Mother Nature decided to tease and taunt the fans and drivers at Ocala Speedway late Friday afternoon. But despite a threat of rain that never really amounted to much, a large crowd came to watch another night of exciting racing action at Florida's oldest race track. Showers managed to briefly dampen things about thirty minutes before hot laps were to begin, but after the five minute sprinkle had ended the water trucks had to pick up where nature had left off and add more moisture to the track. The track retained that moisture quite well throughout the night and the track stayed fairly tacky for all of the races. After enjoying some time off the Hobby Stocks showed up in droves for the first night back on the Ocala clay, which gave the fans an extra race to watch as a B-Main was added to find the last six qualifiers for the feature event. Glenn Baum led the field to the green flag from the pole position, but Grady Christian, Shane Williams, and Daniel Miller Jr, all jumped to the front and attempted to distance themselves from the pack. A pleasant surprise was asphalt open wheel modified driver Alan MaCafferty, who was making his debut on dirt. McCafferty would impress everyone as he fought his way into the top five and announced himself to the front runners. From lap 4 until the end, Grady Christian had the car to beat and no one seemed to have the car to beat it. The closest competitor was Shane Willams, but he would settle for the second spot in the end. Patrick Williams would fight hard and come home third, followed by David Kinsey and Alan McCafferty. After last weekend's $1000 Mini Stock race, Keith Briggs had his engine torn down to the last bolt and went home with it in boxes. The net result of that experience was Briggs got $1000 richer, but in turn had to fork over $800 of that money to have the engine reassembled properly after the tear down. Declared legal and ready to race, Briggs wasted no time in blasting to the front in the Mini Stock feature race. Briggs made his way past Ray Etheridge and Cole Ridenhour to take the lead on lap 9, and from there he remained out front until the checkers waved. Ridenhour would make a last lap gutsy move out of turn 4 to steal second place from a stunned Ray Etheridge, who fell the third spot. Daniel Paul Combast claimed the fourth spot while William Stalnaker raced to the fifth place award. Jeff Bagent earned the pole position for the Open Wheel Modified feature race, a but as the green dropped he found himself facing the wrong way in turn one and bringing out a yellow flag. His car would have to be pushed to the infield as the race restarted, this time with Alex Boerner on the pole. Bagent would be far from the only modified driver to have a rough time of it, as Tim Zackery's machine would suffer a catastrophic failure on lap 3 and dump a slick of oil all over turn one and turn two. That caution set up Roger Crouse to steal the lead from Dave Barber, but Crouse had gremlins of his own in his machine. Crouse's car would slow on lap 13 allowing Jeff Matthews to race into the top spot. More cars would fall victim to misfortunes during the race. Jeff Bagent's car would detonate after he reentered the race a few laps down, again oiling the track. The 23VP and 61 would both end up in multi car tangles, and the 11 would break on the front stretch with 3 laps to go. But in the end it was the 33 and 56 that fought for the lead, with Jeff Matthews holding off Dave Barber for the win. John Bradley would use the outside line to claim the third spot while Chuck Gustafson and Charles O'Neill would claim fourth and fifth, respectively. The Gladiators rounded out the night of racing action and got off to a raocky start just as the modifieds had done. A first lap spin and infield excursion by Donnie Singleton brought out a caution and left him running far behind at the restart. He would never really get going as a flat tire forced him to the pits on lap 5. Roy Taylor would have the 19 out in front for a while, but a determined Brian Chisolm would find that the outside groove was the road to beating Taylor. Chisolm would snatch the lead away from Taylor on lap 8 as Taylor would pound the front stretch wall and yet keep going. Chisolm would drive to a first place finish followed by Taylor, as Guy Bacelo Jr would come home in the third spot. Friday, May 23rd is City of Ocala Employees Night as the Late Models return for another exciting feature race. Joining the Late Models will be that Hobby Stocks, V8 Thunder Stocks, and the Gladiators. Ocala Speedway Results for 5/16/08 Open Wheel Modified 1- 33 Jeff Matthews 2- 56 Dave Barber Jr. 3- 27 John Bradley 4- 11 Chuck Gustafson Jr. 5- 75C Charles O'Neill 6- 94 Jeff Bagent 7- 8 Rick Scott 8- 11N Kevin Mills 9- 32 Roger Crouse 10- 23VP V. Pipken 11- 61 Ronald Soltis 12- 3 Alex Boerner 13- Z Tim Zackery 14- 95 James Edgley DNS- 0 Richard Dickinson Mini Stock 1- 19T Keith Briggs 2- 25 Cole Ridenhour 3- 21 Ray Ethridge 4- 19C Daniel Paul Combast 5- 59 Willaim Stalnaker 6- 3B Michael Bagley Jr. 7- 119Z Johnny Zackery 8- 14 Frank Prouty 9- 40M David Miller 10- 55 Larry Reynolds DNS- 9AR Charlie Staats Hobby Stock 1- 36 Grady Christian 2- XXX1 Shane Williams 3- 56G Patrick Williams 4- 58 David Kinsey 5- 1 Alan McCafferty 6- 21 David Miller Jr. 7- 4B Michael Tovet 8- XX Russell Post 9- 12 Justin Durbin 10- 23 Glenn Baum 11- 08 William Edwards 12- 10 Jeff Stalnaker Sr. 13- 91 Josh Sanford 14- 72 Marlon Durbin 15- X Chris Waldron 16- 4 Richard Cooper 17- 37 Dean Jarvis 18- 57 Wally Schneider 19- 55 Joey Durbin 20- 99 Daniel Miller Jr. 21- 56 Kevin Durden 22- 2JR Todd Roberts 23- 00T Eddie Tovet DNS- 15 Donald Paugh Gladiator 1- 60 Brian Chisolm 2- 19 Roy Taylor 3- 2B Guy Bacelo Jr. 4- 77 Donnie Singleton Have an opinion on this story? 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