The Boone Speedway added more first time winners to the list Saturday night as all classes except the Mod Lites found new drivers in victory lane. There was also an added competition in the Modified class, a challenge deemed, "The Last Man Standing".
The Mod Lite was the class that saw the only returning winner. It had an exciting finish at the line when Bryan Zehm made the last moment pass, beating Cory Dennis to the checkers. Dennis, who finished no doubt, a disappointing second, had led the entire race up to that point. Point leader Josh May was third, followed by Travis Stensland and Joe Glick in fourth and fifth. Zehm claimed his fourth victory of the year at Boone.
The 18-lap IMCA Northern SportMod feature had rookie Cory Pestotnik leading the field through the first eight laps. That would be when seventh place starter Chad Ryerson took over as captain of the ship. A couple of laps later, it was twelfth place starter Jake McBirnie taking second place and challenging leader Ryerson. McBirnie looked every which way for a way around but just was not able to pull it off and Ryerson took the win by transponder timing of 76/100th of a second. Pestotnik had a good run, taking third, fourth went to ninth place starter Jonathan Logue and Darin Rothfus was fifth. Ryerson got his first win at the Boone Speedway. The race went flag to flag.
The Hobby Stock's went their usual 12-laps for the A main. Bryan Keeney, Nevada, Iowa driver, sat on the outside of the front row, and took the lead as the race went green. Despite having a nasty push up the track every time coming out of turn four, he was able to maintain that top spot all the way to the checkers. Solomon Bennett nearly made his dogging the leader pay off, as he finished a "close, but no cigar" second at the line. Third was Dustin Graham, fourth went to point leader Eric Stanton and last week's winner, Dustin Lynch finished fifth. This was Keeney's first win at Boone and what I believe to be his first every career win.
The Stock Car feature also had a first time winner on the year. Last week Todd Inman showed up at the track for the first time. However, Inman is no stranger to piloting a race car and has plenty of wins under his belt in years past. This week he sat on the pole for the start of the 18-lapper, jumped to the immediate lead, and never looked back. This race also went green to checkered, and saw Inman pull away from the field and take the comfortable win. Second place was fourth place starter Don Vis, and trailing a distance behind were Cory Piffer in third, Tyler Pickett in fourth and fifth place finisher Butch Bass. Inman is the seventh different Stock Car winner at Boone this season.
The Modifieds ran their 20-lap feature last, but earlier, there had been a challenge race among the 12 top transponder timed drivers from the heats. Those drivers were Robert Avery, Josh Truman, Tony Cox, Mike VanGenderen, Joel Bushore, Denny Pittman, Richie Gustin, Chris Webb, Devin Havlik, Eric Elliott, John Logue and Jon Snyder. The drivers drew for their starting positions in front of the grandstand via "pick the bottle of oil" draw. The lucky recipients of the front row were Eric Elliott and Josh Truman. The race was sponsored by TiLUBE, which is a Motorsport Lubricant. The challenge race was 15-laps and after the first four laps were completed, then it was the car running in last position, being sent to the pits. The last man standing was Josh Truman who went home with an extra $1,000 in his pocket.
The final race, the Modified 20-lapper ended the night's racing action. This race also went caution free and was led start to finish by veteran racer Robert Avery. It wasn't a piece of cake however, as he had three drivers close at hand most of the race, all battling back and forth. Avery never bobbled on his way to the checkers, his first this year and a check back at my records, appears to be the first in five or more years at the track. Those finishing closely behind him were Joel Bushore in second, third was John Logue and Mike VanGenderen was fourth. Not far behind them was Jon Snyder in fifth.
Lots of racing coming up in the next couple of months. Be sure and check the racing calendar at Positively Racing, and seek out a race to attend. Thanks for reading.
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