With the points battle tight coming into the night, Dustin O’Brien created some much needed breathing room for himself in the Speedmart / Hoosier 600 championship chase with a main event victory on craft stove night. Other feature winners were Derek Holmwood, Derrick Moss and Isaac Abenroth.
Other than a little better time trial, the night could not have gone much better for O’Brien. Starting third on the A Main, O’Brien used the lapped car of Kyle Oman as a basketball style pick to help get around race leader Shaun Holtorf in the latter stages of the Speedmart / Hoosier main event to secure the lead and the eventual victory. The win, coupled with mechanical woes from second place in points Brock Lemley, gave O’Brien a _______ point lead going into Saturday nights championship chase. Holtorf ran second on his first night in the Speedmart / XXX house car, and Kelly Mauck was third.
It was a wire to wire win for Derek Holmwood in the 1200 division, as the Bellingham native led all twenty five laps of the feature on his way to the victory. Aaron Fell ran second but did not make up enough points to challenge for the championship, as points leader Brock Lemley finished third, virtually guaranteeing Brock the 1200 title.
Points leader Derrick Moss also made it easy on himself with a wire to wire win from the pole in the 600 Restricted division. Moss stretched his points lead over Austin Sheridan with the victory, also virtually locking up the points title. Hannah Lindquist was second and Rachel Westmoreland third.
The tightest of the points battles coming into tonight was the Kasey Kahne Junior Sprints. Isaac Abenroth led the points going into the evening, and when the dust settled, he had stretched his points advantage to 14 and 15 respectively over Eli Schmidt and Ashleigh Johnson with a win in the main event. The top three in points finished 1-2-3 in the feature, keeping things tight going into the final night of racing.
With one night left, the points race in the Junior Sprints will be decided by the A feature on Les Schwab night on Saturday, as the aforementioned youngsters will go tooth and nail for Junior Sprint supremecy. Derrick Moss has a 31 point advantage going into the final night of racing in the 600 restricted class, which barring disaster, should secure him the title. Brock Lemley has sewn up the 1200 title with a 100+ point pad on Aaron Fell. In the Speedmart Hoosier 600 division, it will also take a disaster for Dustin O’Brien to lose his 98 point advantage over Lemley.
Kaleb Hart