Rick Laubach, Cole Stangle and Doug Smith Score Big Diamond Season Finale Victories

Big Diamond put a close on their 2021 championship regular season with their final point race and opened their Coal Cracker weekend with Sportsman Coal Cracker 40.

Rick Laubach started on the pole and never looked back in a green to checkered flag first win of the season at Big Diamond.  He led his first lap of the season in the heat race and took it to his first feature win of the season in his family owned # 20.

Cole Stangle waited until the biggest race of the season at Big Diamond to make his 2021 debut in the sportsman division and it paid off in a big way with his first Coal Cracker 40 win.

Doug Smith scored his second 602 Crate win of the season at Big Diamond and in hopes that his 3^rd win is just around the corner on Sunday at the 602 Crate Coal Cracker 30.

 Rick Laubach took advantage of his poll starting position and tore away from the field until yellow on lap 16 restacked the field.   Alex Yankowski moved into second from his 10^th starting position on lap 20 and made a late challenge for the lead which Laubach was able to fend off and take his first drive into victory lane at Big Diamond this season.

The top ten was rounded out by Alex Yankowski in 2^nd followed by Louden Reimert, Mike Lisowski, Tim Buckwalter, Mike Gular, Jeff Strunk, Ryan Watt, Duane Howard and Nick Rochinski.

In victory lane Rick commented “This year has been a work in progress since the middle of winter when we decided to do this deal and I’ve got a lot of people to thank and glad I got here to do it.  First want to thank my wife for all she puts up with and for motivating me to do well and can’t thank her enough.  Secondly I got to thank Jason Linebecker who built this engine and is a new guy coming into the sport and he never gives up and we got this thing running good when it matters.  Got to thank Teo; this is a new Teo car; and everyone is giving up on Teo but we haven’t.  We were good at Grandview the other night and I knew we were going to be good here tonight.  I got thank my sponsors and I’ve got a lot of them and without them this would not happen because we’re just working people.  I knew the car was a little banged up at the end and it felt wishy washy on the straightaways; I saw Alex underneath me and know he wants to win but I want to win too and I tried a little harder.”

Cole Stangle was able to draw the pole and led the field at the drop of the green.  Despite 5 restarts and Brandon Edgar moving into 2^nd early in the race; Cole was able to use a top line and hold off all of Edgar’s challenges and take his first trip into the Coal Cracker 40 victory lane as well as his first Big Diamond sportsman victory of the 2021 season.

The top 5 was rounded out by Brandon Edgar in 2^nd place followed by Wayne Witmer, Doug Hendricks and Mike Schneck in 5^th place.

In victory lane Cole noted “Every time we unload the car its lights out fast. We saw a money show and why not take a shot and try?  Everything worked out and I’m here. Brandon Edgar is always tough competitor here and once I saw him in 2^nd on the restarts knew I had to get my stuff together and if I kept playing my game on restarts I would be good.  I kept playing the game and everything other restart I did something different and it tended to work.  The guys set the car up great and want to give a quick thanks to my mom, dad and all my sponsors.”

Kevin Brady led the field to green and was able hold off Logan Watt and Doug Smith for the first ten laps.  On lap 12; Brady approached lapped traffic and got bottled up on the inside line allowing Logan Watt to take the lead on the high bottom only to see Doug Smith find an opening on the top and go past both of them to assume the lead on a two for one pass from 3^rd place.   From there Smith checked out and cruised into victory lane for his second win of the season.

The top five was rounded by Logan Watt, Kyle Kania, Kevin Brady and Tyler Peete in 5^th place.

In victory lane Doug Smith stated “I saw that # 8 was hugging the bottom and thought man not sure I can get around there; so I went to the top and the leaders when down there and they all had to check up so I got around them and it all kind of worked out for me. I hope to be back on Sunday night and sweep the Coal Cracker Crate titles.”

The next race at Big Diamond is the $17,000 to win Coal Cracker on Sunday September 5^th with racing starting at 7:45 PM.