Photos Luisa Pereira
First Insurance sponsored a night of firsts at Saratoga Speedway on Saturday. #99 Gilles Cyr, #24 Wayde Heckford and #44 Tim Openshaw all picked up their first main event wins in their respected classes on Saturday.
The Night started off strong in qualifying, with 2 new track records being set. #11 Mike Meeres set a new track record in the Dwarf car division, setting a new track record of 15.513, beating the old record of 15.531. #53 Kevin Noble was the other driver to set a track record, setting a new track record in the I.M.C.A division with a time of 15.275. Over the past 3 race events for the Modifieds, a new track record has been set every race night. 7 dashes were run on Saturday. In the Dwarf car class, #5 Jeremy Stevens picked up the win in the B dash, and #11 Mike Meeres won the A. #32 Dano Bryant won the B dash in the I.M.C.A division, and the A went to #8 Brad Purdy. #72 Travis Stevenson picked up the win in the B dash for the Bomber cars, and #24 Charlie Ackerman picked up the win in the A. The Motorcycles also ran a dash on the evening, with the win going to #68 Bruce Moran.
Each class also ran heats, and invert heats on the night. #24 Wayde Heckford took the win in the heat for the Dwarf cars, with the invert heat win going to #4 Sean Sanger. #44 Tim Openshaw picked up his first win of the season in the I.M.C.A heat; #98 Pat Brown ran away with the invert heat, leading every lap. Stevenson carried over his winning ways into the Bomber heat, leading all but 2 laps. #28 Mike Morningstar held pole in the invert heat and led since there, taking the win. #1 Chris White managed to hold off Moran to take the win in the Motorcycle heat. Moran dominated White in the main to take the win, leading all but 3 laps. The 20 lap Dwarf car feature saw Heckford move his way up to first on the first lap. #11 Mike Meeres would battle Heckford the whole way on but couldn’t find away around him, giving Heckford his first ever main event win in a Dwarf car. Meeres would finish 2nd, and 3rd went to #4 Sean Sanger. #32 Dano Bryant led 6 other Modifieds to the green flag in their 25 lap feature. Openshaw would only take 2 laps to get around Bryant, and from there he spread his lead to almost half a lap and went on to take his first main event win of the season.
Purdy would finish 2nd, and #53 Kevin Noble settled with 3rd. 4 lead changed occurred in the 30 lap main event for the Bomber cars. #28 Mike Morningstar led for the first 6 laps, but #11 Justin Beaulieu made a nice move on the outside to take over the lead. Beaulieu held that lead for 17 laps, but #90 Johnny Zanette took over the lead on lap 23. Zanette looked to have it won, but on lap 29 #99 Gilles Cyr flew by on the outside to take the lead and would go on to win his first main event of the season. Zanette finished 2nd, and Beaulieu finished 3rd.Extra laps… Next weekend marks our final Monster Truck weekend of the season. 4 amazing Monster trucks will be on hand next weekend, including never seen before McGruff. California Kid and Rockstar will be back for the 2nd show of the year, along with Double Trouble, also a relatively new truck. The Hornet cars, Bomber cars, Crash to Pass cars, Roadrunners and Tough trucks will round out the schedule next weekend. This also marks the mid-season championship for all of those classes. Sunday, July 31, will be our cheaper night. Adults pay $5 less, Students pay $10 less, and Children pay $5 less. Make sure to check out next weekends amazing show.