Street Stock title battle goes to the wire at Evergreen Speedway

From Evergreen Speedway (Sept. 26, 2009)

Short track championship night at Evergreen Speedway was one exciting evening. Full fields of cars, good weather and a party atmosphere amongst the drivers and fans.

Starting the evenings main events, the Les Schwab Tire Street Stocks had a “B” main event. 6 cars took to the track looking for 2 transfer spots into the “A” main. AJ Baxter took the checker, Frank Marin finished 2nd Joselyn LaFleur in 3rd. Baxter took the move up to the feature and Marin opted for the trophy instead of the move up.

The Cub Scout Hornets, looking to crown their first champion, had so many cars that 2 main events had to be run. Chris Williamson came into the night with a big point lead, but not insurmountable for Rick Palmer. Williamson started shotgun on the field and had to make his way past 17 other cars to get to the front. Picking off cars one and two at a time, it didn’t take long for Williamson to get to the front. Cody Koroshes, who led for the first half of the race and at one point had a big lead. A caution flew for a car stalled bunching the field. On the restart Williamson was able to take the lead and didn’t look back. Koroshes finished in 2nd and Jaime Corbett finished in 3rd. The win secured the championship for Williamson. The 2nd main event also had 18 cars take the green flag. Patrick Heald starting from the back of pack was in a hurry to make his to the front. Nicole Pollard, Billy Williams and John Crowfoot battled and swapped the lead early in the race. While these 3 battled out front, Heald was making his way through the field. At the stripe it has Heald, followed by Williams and Crowfoot.

The Stinger 8 class had an exciting race. 18 cars started the main event and it didn’t take long for the intersection to become a factor. Jim Puntenney, who started on the front row and also make things exciting at the “X”, was the first car to be involved with a big hit in the intersection. Steve Peters and Lance O’Grain were battling for the number one spot lap after lap. Peters was collected up in an altercation at the middle, dropping him from the lead to well back in the pack. Peters ran hard to move back up to the top of the field but ran out of laps. Seth Funden, the newly crowned champion, quickly and quietly moved his way from his back row starting spot towards the front. At the stripe for the win, O’Grain had almost a half lap lead over Funden, JJ Edwards finished in 3rd.

The Pawn X-change Super figure 8 race was next up on the grid. Steve Peters started on the front row and never looked back. Ricky Deitz, John Carlson and Shane Sawin ran bumper to bumper behind Peters for nearly the entire 50 laps of the main event. Peters never made a bobble or the mistake that these drivers were looking to capitalize on and that is how they would run to the white flag. Coming around the final turn, Carlson had mechanical problems and pulled out the race groove. Sawin jumped on the opportunity to finish on the podium. Although Carlson didn’t win a trophy on this night, he did win the championship.

The finale championship battle of the night was the Les Schwab Tire Street Stock. A very tight point battle, with just 9 points separating the top three. Frank Cowgill with a 6 point lead over Darrel Lutovsky and 9 points over defending champion Lane Sundholm. The 50 lap main event, with a field of very fast cars and many race winners and champions the action was almost immediate. Travis Blackwood, Duane Schoesboek and Naima Lang all former champions in this division came to win some hardware. Sundholm , Cowgill and Lutovsky ran hard to get to the front of the pack. First to do it was Sundholm and when he made his way to the number one spot he checked out on the field. Schoesboek was solidly in 2nd with Doug Davidson in 3rd. The caution flew when Andy Sole and Blackwood made contact on the back stretch. Cars started to hit the brakes to avoid Sole and Blackwood. Cowgill sustained damage to the front of his car during the wreck that happened out in front of him. Making his way to the pits to remove the damaged body pieces, his crew got him back out fast keeping him on the lead lap. The next bit of bad luck came to Lutovsky, making contact with Steve Ptacek sending Lutovsky around and dropping him well back in the field. It took a few restarts to get the cars back to racing, only to have the caution fly again when Dave Stewart Jr. spun coming off of turn 2. With nowhere to go both Lutovsky and Cowgill became involved in the incident. Cowgill’s car sustained enough damage that it had to leave on the tow truck. Lutovsky had sheet metal damage on every side of his car. At the checkered flag it was Sundholm followed by Shoesboek and Davidson. Unofficially Sundholm takes the crown by 4 points over Cowgill and Lutovsky in 3rd 5 points back.

Street Stocks:

1 00 Lane Sundholm 0

2 25 Duane Schoesboek 0

3 9 Doug Davidson 0

4 85 Jim Foti 0

5 27 Naima Lang 0

6 99 Joe Kneeland 0

7 54 Tim Widener 0

8 53 Darrel Lutovsky 0

9 34 Andy Sole 0

10 66 Ryan Hansen 0

11 8 AJ Baxter 0