It was 88 degrees as I drove through the back gate at Evergreen Speedway.
Although the temperature cooled off later in the evening — and a full moon came up over the Cascades — the action on the track stayed plenty hot with five divisions in action.
My notes from Saturday are here: CLICK HERE.
Cody Koroshes drove through a crowd of turning and spinning cars on lap 10 to take a lead he wouldn’t relinquish in the Stinger Eight feature main.
Koroshes then held off Lance Ograin and Seth Funden on a restart with four laps to go in the 20-lap feature.
Funden was second, Ograin third, Darin Stordahl finished fourth in his Stinger Eight debut and Josh Young rounded out the top five.
Koroshes won the Stinger Eight World Championship race on Aug. 2, and earlier Saturday he finished first in a Mini-Stock division heat race. Noting his string of victories, speedway announcer Kelly Hale said of Koroshes, “That, my friends, is called a roll.”
Ben Chandler took the lead at the start and led the first ten laps before getting spun just as he crossed the start-finish line. That created a knot of confusion that Koroshes slipped through for the lead.
The end of the race was a bit confusing, as flagger Steve Dunn had dropped the checkered flag inside one of the barrier tires that line Evergreen Speedway’s figure-eight track. Thinking quickly, Dunn waved the black and white flags together to mark the finish.
Many of the racers assumed Koroshes had been black-flagged, and continued running hard, assuming they were still on the last lap.
Chandler and Ograin won the heat races.
As they have all season long, the drivers of Evergreen Speedway’s Bomber division went three-wide on the three-eighths miles oval shortly after the green flag fell on Saturday night.
After a two-lap battle after a restart on lap 19, Travis Blackwood passed rookie David Stewart Jr. for the lead en route to his third victory of the season.
“(Stewart) gave me a real good run when I was on the outside,” Blackwood said from victory stage. “He’s going to be a really good driver for some time to come.”
The checkered and yellow flags flew at the same time, as 17-year-old Shelby Minor-Ball, making her first start at Evergreen, spun out between turns 1 and 2 on the white-flag lap.
Blackwood had already lapped Minor-Ball, but the rest of the leaders, including Stewart, Casey Branch and Frank Cowgill —who were second to fourth, respectively — were caught up in the spin, as was Russ Hales.
Season points leader Jim Foti and Darrel Lutosvsky, who were running fifth and sixth at the time, escaped the melee and finished second and third, respectively. Tim Widener was fourth and Joe Kneeland finished fifth.
The race also had a red-flag period, on lap 6 when Ryan Hansen and Jill Lang came together on the frontstretch, sending both into the wall. Lang’s car bounced off the wall and rolled back across the track, collecting Foti and sending his car into one of the tire barriers.
Foti joined the rest of the field parked along the backstretch, but Lang’s car had to be hauled off the track.
Hansen attempted to get back to pit under his own power, but he had to abandon the car along the backstretch when it caught fire. The car burned brightly for a minute or so before emergency personnel arrived to extinguish the fire.
Widener and Hales won the heat races.
Two-time and defending champion John Zaretzke edged James Mugge to the line before a caution — crossing .017 seconds before Mugge per the speedway’s loop data — to earn the coveted inside position for the lap 20 restart.
Zaretzke then held off Mugge and points leader Naima Lang to earn his second victory of the season in the 40-lap Super Stock feature.
Lang tried to challenge Zaretzke in the closing laps, but a broken sway bar limited him to following the defending champion to the end of the race.
Adding to Mugge’s woes, on lap 25 he dropped several positions after he and Lang got together coming out of turn 4. Mugge managed a great save, and then battled his way back to the front to finish third behind Zaretzke and Lang.
Rookie Steve Ptacek finished fourth and Jeff Knight was fifth.
Mugge took the lead on lap 3 and he and Zaretzke battled side-by-side for several laps after a restart on lap 15. When Michael Prudnick brought out the yellow flag on lap 18 by spinning on entry to turn 3, Zaretzke had just nosed ahead of Mugge at the line for the lead.
Lang and Zaretzke won the heat races.
Defending champion Chuck Richard had given up.
Entering the night second in points, he was content to finish third, knowing he would gain ground on points leader Mark Weedin, who was way off the pace and getting lapped.
But then Cody Koroshes, who had led the entire race after starting on the pole, blew an engine on lap 21.
Richard, who moved up to second and found himself on the outside of Dale Creager, timed the restart perfectly and jumped out to the lead heading into turn 1.
“(Things) do work out,” Richard said with a laugh after the race. “I had kind of given up before Cody broke his motor — I was going to settle for third.”
Creager finished second, Kim Lang was third, Nat Barber was fourth and Kris Harriss rounded out the top five.
It was announced after the race that Weedin, who finished 13th, and Richard had unofficially swapped places on the points list.
Both are close friends off the track, but Richard said after the race that passing Weedin to take the points lead with just a handful of races left was “sugarcoating” on his first victory of the season.
Koroshes and Weedin won the heat races.
Steve Peters took the lead on lap 11, then held on to finish ahead of hard-charging Nick Gunderson in the Super Figure Eight feature race.
“I saw him coming,” Peters said of Gunderson from victory stage, adding that he was glad the race wasn’t five laps longer than the 35 it went.
Gunderson was second, Quinten Borrenson finished third, Doug Delfel was fourth and defending champion and points leader John Carlson rounded out the top five.
Ricky Dietz, whose car was undriveable after a wreck during one of the heat races, received a lot of help from fellow racers and was able to return to finish 10th in the feature. He got as high as third place before having to pull into the pits.
Peters and Borrenson won the heat races.
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