Special to the Phoenix
May 16, 2009 11:58 pm
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OKTAHA — Heath Weston’s drive through a dust storm was worth the effort as he joined just a hand full of drivers to win two features in the same night at Outlaw Motor Speedway here Friday evening.
Weston won a pair of 360 Modified features — a makeup race from last week’s card that was rained out — and the regular Friday night event. He won both races with ease.
Weston of Muskogee won the wreck-filled first race of the evening, leading from start to finish. He beat Braggs’ Patrick Goodnight to the checkered flag.
In the regular race, high winds, lightning, and rain in the area threatened to postpone the race once again.
But officials shortened the race to 15 laps and restarted races after each caution single file. Even at that, race conditions were better than ideal with the high winds from the northwest picking up dust and blowing it across turn four with force.
Weston took the lead in this race on lap five and led the rest of the way. His chief challenger was Spiro’s Brookin Stephens, who didn’t have the horsepower on this night. Muskogee’s Kerney Weaver was third.
Toby Lindell of Muskogee rolled his car in turn one, but he emerged from it without injury. In the first feature, Stephens was involved in an accident. He left the track in an ambulance, but the knee injury did not prevent him from racing in the final feature.
Pure Stock
There was an opportunity for Mike Burnett to win a pair of features, but after winning the makeup race, he had to leave the track in the regular race with car problems.
Bobby Lewis, a former Muskogee track champion, won a thrilling race, beating Lee McClain of Chouteau and Dalton Ragsdale of Fort Gibson.
Lewis led all but four laps of the race — running second to McClain on laps 10-13. He wrestled the lead from McClain on a restart on lap 14 and won the green-white-checkered flag drag race to the finish. He got a good inside start out of turn four.
In a makeup of the 15-lap race, Burnett won his fourth race of the year, leading from lap four to the finish. The Muskogee driver had to block McClain twice in the final two laps for the win.
McClain, battling from the back of the field, caught Burnett on lap eight and was on his bumper from there. In the final two laps, he pulled along side Burnett on the backstretch, but each time Burnett used the low groove to maintain the lead.
Hobby Stock
Colton Dunlap won one of the better races of the evening, beating a hard-charging Dale Richardson. The two Muskogee drivers dueled for the top spot for the final 13 laps of the 20-lap race.
The final five laps were particularly interesting. The two ran practically side-by-side on the backstretch, with Dunlap holding the high groove. Richardson would get a slight advantage low in turns three and four, but when the two exited four in the homestretch, Dunlap had the advantage, slight-shooting down the straight, just moving ahead of his rival at the flag stand.
In the final two laps, Richardson chose to try to muscle the 16-year-old Muskogee High junior out of the prime groove, but was unsuccessful. Dunlap refused to budge out of the high lane.
Modified
Jareed Russell of Muskogee won his first feature. He was a start-to-finish winner of the race sliced to 15 laps because of the threatening weather conditions,
Russell held off Jarrod Havens and Tulsa’s Chad Davis.
Greg Skaggs of Bixby who has won four features, pulled to the infield on lap nine.
Russell took the lead from the pole and fought Justin Fulton, Fort Gibson, in a hotly contested race for nine laps. Russell used the whole track in fighting off Fulton, who dropped lout after 10 laps with car problems.
Havens and Davis were no factors at the end.
Front Wheel Drive
After a week out of the winner’s circle, Ronnie Palmer of Roland resumed his winning ways with an easy feature win.
He had a “DNF” last week after winning four features in a row. He has five wins for the season.
Brandon Morris of Boonville, Ark., was second and Vian’s David Vinson was third.
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