| |
Owens Survives Battle of Attrition to Win at East Bay
SCOTT LOCKWOOD
Florida Short Track Report.com
GIBSONTON - Jimmy Owens turned out to be in the right place at the right time
Saturday night, taking advantage of the problems that beset the leaders and
winning the Crate Racin’ USA World Championship 100 lap race for the
StormPay.com Late Models at East Bay Raceway Park.
Starting on the pole, Owens couldn’t get the jump at the green flag and fell in
line behind outside polesitter Stacy Roberts. Also coming to the front from his
eighth starting spot was Randy Korte, who quickly got around Owens and
began to run down Roberts, who had already began lapping the back of the
field just 10 laps into the event.
As the leaders entered the third turn on lap 13, Roberts got bottled up behind
a slower car which allowed both Korte and Owens to close. Coming out of turn
four, the leaders were three-wide and stayed that way going into the first turn.
Korte emerged with the lead in the back stretch and began to quickly pull away
from Roberts.
Korte ran into trouble with the lapped car of B-main winner Stephen Rodgers
on lap 17, when contact between the two sent Korte spinning into the infield in
turn two. Korte was allowed to return to the top spot, with Rodgers being sent
to the rear of the field. The same thing would happen to Korte 40 laps later,
when contact with the lapped car of Phillip Cobb spun him in the exact same
spot.
Korte appeared to be on his way to an easy victory until his car came to a
sudden stop just after the completion of lap 85. A suspension failure ended
the night for Korte, who had been in front for 72 consecutive laps in his bid to
repeat his win from a year ago. Roberts, who had led the first 12 laps,
reassumed the lead with Owens directly behind him for the restart.
On the restart, Owens dove underneath Roberts going into the first turn but
couldn’t make the pass stick on the slick race track. Owens kept pressing
hard for the next couple of laps, only to see Roberts begin inching away.
Roberts had built up a small lead when he slowed in turn two on lap 90, when
a broken drive shaft ended his shot at the $10,000 prize.
Owens inherited the lead, but would not have an easy time of it over the final
10 laps. Doug Horton, who had been racing with Owens for the entire event,
made several attempts to get under Owens but wasn’t successful. Horton
looked like he had a run as the leaders were completing lap 98,, but a slip in
turn one allowed Owens, who also won the World 100 at Eldora Speedway
earlier this season, to add an East Bay win to his resume.
Rounding out the top-10 were Horton, Frankie Beard, Todd Morrow, Anthony
White, Shannon Buckingham, Derrick Rainey, Jeff Fields, NEXTEL Cup driver
Ken Schrader and Steve Mathis. The top eight cars all finished on the lead
lap.
In the Saturday night preliminary races, Rogers and White won the two 20-lap
B-Main races, and Matthew Turner and Roger Crouse winning the two 10-lap
C-Main races. Tom Maddox won the 10-lap last-chance dash to earn the 27th
starting spot in the main event.
In other racing action at East Bay Saturday night, Alex Borner held on to win
the 15-lap open wheel modified feature, holding off John Bradley and Florida
racing legend Buzzie Reutimann in a thrilling finish. Bobby Dixon and Jeff
Matthews won the heat races.
Frank Miller used a last turn, last lap pass of teammate Colin Cruise to win the
15-lap 4-cylinder bomber feature event. Kyle Eash was third. Cruise and Kyle
Eash took the wins in the heat races.
Saturday night was the final night of racing action at East Bay for the 2007
season.
|
|
|
|
|
