Buckwalter Claims Big Diamond’s Stevenson Memorial

Big Diamond hosted the Georgie Stevenson Memorial $4,000 modified race and their 3rd point’s race of the season.   Rain storms delayed the start of racing until after 9:00 and a full moon appeared to add to a bit of chaos to some of the on-track activities for the night.

On a very heavy track Mike Lisowski lead the Modified field for 9 laps while Tim Buckwalter moved into 2^nd behind Lisowski.  On lap 11 it was Buckwalter taking the lead with Jeff Strunk lurking behind him in second place waiting for a mistake.   Despite 4 cautions and the resulting restarts Buckwalter was able to check out on Jeff Strunk and hold him off every time and drive into the Big Diamond victory lane for the first time this year.

 Corey Merkel and Colt Harris were on the front row and lead the field to green.  Harris day ended before the race started with wall contact sending him to the pits before the first lap was recorded.  Merkel led one lap and then was towed to the pits with a broken front end on lap 3.  On lap 4 Mike Lisowski assumed the led from his 3^rd starting position after the entire front row exited on the hook for the pits after only 3 laps.  Point leader Mike Gular and Nick Rochinski were towed off after hard contact for the first yellow of lap 4.  The second lap 4 restart saw another front stretch tangle and this time involving 5 cars with Von Dohren and Frank Yankowski being towed to the pits.  4 laps with 4 cautions usually won’t make anyone happy but this 4^th caution worked out well for Mike Gular as he had time to make extensive front end repairs and get back in the tail of the field and still on the lead lap to defend his points lead.  2^nd in points Von Dohren had the same ideal and was able to get out of the pits quickly and join Gular in the back of the field as both continued their points chase after repairing heavy damage on two separate lap 4 incidents.  After taking the lead on lap 11 Buckwalter held on to the lead to take the $4,000 winner’s check despite an additional 4 caution flags to deal with during the 30 lap feature.

The top ten were Timmy Buckwalter, Jeff Strunk, Brett Kressley, Shawn Fitzpatrick, Craig Von Dohren, Mike Lisowski, Rick Laubach, Nick Rochinski, Kris Graver, and Doug Hendricks.

Craig Whitmoyer, Tim Buckwalter and Frank Yankowski all picked up heat wins.

In the Sportsman vs Crate Challenge Feature Brandon Edgar got his first win of the season and checked out on a solid field of 36 sportsman/crates.   Edgar was followed by Jim Houseworth, Tim Fitzpatrick, Mike Burrows and Wayne Witmer to round out the top 5.

  Modified Pit Notes

Tim Buckwalter was pulling double duty with the 5G East Coast Sprint Car and the 23X Modified.  The sprint car night ended in the heat race with a steering box failure taking Buckwalter hard straight into the turn 3 wall.  That bad luck with the sprint car was offset by a bad fast modified that took Buckwalter into the modified victory lane for the first time this season at Big Diamond.

Shawn Fitzpatrick is starting to get some attention in the T102 modified entry with his second consecutive top 5 finish.  Last week Fitzpatrick came home 2^nd and this week held on to a 4^th place finish.

In addition to the race there were some dramatic season points chase developments within the race during the feature.   The top 3 in points all had their share drama during the race that significantly affect their season point’s chase.  

The points leader Mike Gular was involved in a lap 4 restart tangle that damaged his front end and caused Gular to lay his head on his roof of his 2A entry in frustration prior to being towed off.   The next restart had another tangle and held the lap count at 4 while a five car pileup was sorted out and towed off allowing Gular time enough to get his front end repaired and return to the tail of field on the same lap.

While Gular was coming back to the track to continue his points chase the guy behind him in second in points Von Dohren was going to the pits on the hook.  But the five car incident took some time to clear from the track which allowed Von Dohren enough time to also make repairs in the pits and return to the tail of the field and join the point’s leader Gular.

Jeff Strunk came into the event 3^rd in points.  His Big Diamond point’s drama started at Bridgeport last Sunday.  Strunkee lost the Big Diamond motor in the 126 at the Bridgeport Motorsports park opener.   Butch Getz who Strunk drove for earlier this year at Penn Can provided Strunk with a ride in one of his 15 entries.  Strunk was able to drive the Getz 15 entry from a 9^th place starting position to a 2^nd place finish and maintain his 3^rd position in points and move closer to Von Dorhen in 2^nd.  Getz drove his other #15 entry to at Penn Can to a 14^th place finish in the same night.

When it was all said and done Strunk got a 2^nd place finish; Von Dohren worked his way back to a 5^th place finish and Gular finished 15^th.   Craig Von Dohren moved into the points lead while Strunk moved up to 2^nd with Gular falling from 1^st to 3^rd in points.  Von Dohren has a 50 point lead over Strunk after race # 3.

Full Moon Bad Luck?

There was plenty of bad luck to go around in the 30 lap feature:

4^th place starter Craig Whitmoyer experienced issues during the parade lap and had to opt out of the 4^th starting position and go back to 24^th on the field.

The front row of Corey Merkel and Colt Harris were crashed out of the race by lap 3.

Billy Pauch Jr worked his way up to 6^th only to have a couple of flats during the feature.

Matt Stangle had a real nice top 5 run which ended with a flat tire.

Loudon Reimert also had a top 5 run going only to lose a tire on lap 26 ending his night with a tow back to the pits on the wrecker

Brett Kressley has had plenty of bad luck this season before tonight.   Kressley started 19^th and had secured 3^rd place on lap 26 only to have a flat left front on caution # 8.   Officials were going to make Kressley pull off but at the last minute they let him stay out.  Despite the flat left front Kressley was able to maintain his 3^rd place position for 4 laps and bring home his best finish of the season.

Glen Rowan won the sportsman feature wire to wire last week.  This week Rowan was wrecked out in his heat race and couldn’t return for the consolation due to damage.  What a difference a week can make with a change in racing luck.