Mon Jun 20, 2011 9:08 am by peanut1439
Tony 7th
Night #2 of Ohio Sprint Speedweek at KC Raceway
Posted by SmokinNews on 6/19/11 •
CHILLICOTHE, OH - After experiencing little mechanical issues over the past few O’Reilly Auto Parts All Star Circuit of Champion events, George Fisher went to work on his Ti22 Performance sprint car. The result? A dominating performance by his driver Dale Blaney on the second night of the 29th Annual Ohio Sprint Speedweek at KC Raceway.
Blaney led all 30 laps Saturday to take his 79th career All Star win as he continues to work toward his fourth All Star championship and a possible fifth Ohio Sprint Speedweek title.
“I love this place…George likes it…I mean it’s kind of his home track. We always run pretty good here. The way the track was tonight you could race all over it,” said Blaney. “We’ve been qualifying really well but we haven’t been finishing off things. Tonight the car was really, really good from qualifying on and I tried to limit my mistakes to a few tonight. If we can continue to do that we will be in good shape.”
“The traffic went pretty good for us. I tried to be aggressive because that 83 car (Tim Shaffer) is awful, awful fast, especially the last half of the race he gets really fast and you know he’ll be there at the end. I was just trying to put as many lapped cars between us and it worked out pretty good,” added Blaney.
Shaffer, who opened speedweek with a win on Friday, would race into second on lap nine, but caution flags and lapped cars would prevent him from getting to Blaney.
“It wasn’t meant to be tonight. Dale and George and those guys did a great job. We couldn’t get the breaks tonight. It’s been a tough year already and hopefully during speedweek we can make up some ground,” said Shaffer beside his Aaron Call/Janet Holbrook owned machine sponsored by Kistler Engines.
Cole Duncan would take third on the third lap and that’s where he would finish, as the cautions prevented him from challenging the top two.
“We had motor trouble yesterday and Charlie Fisher helped us out today and we got that thing running pretty good. We were pretty good on the long runs…we were good early but there were too many lapped cars there at the end,” said Duncan beside his Bobby Labonte Racing, Wolfden Carbon Fiber Products, Motorcity Auto Transport backed #22. “We put this car together last week…we crashed here last Saturday so we put a new car together and it seems to be pretty good.”
Blaney and Kyle Sauder would lead the field to the green with David Gravel, Shaffer, Duncan and Cap Henry in tow. Duncan would move into third on lap three and immediately challenged Sauder for the runner-up spot as Blaney pulled away. “The Low Rider” would hit lapped traffic by lap 7 as Sauder continued to battle Duncan and now Shaffer. Shaffer would drive by both Duncan and Sauder into second on lap 9. Meanwhile there was a great battle for third between Sauder, Duncan, Henry, Gravel and Randy Hannagan.
The caution would fly on lap 13 for a Sheldon Haudenschild/Rob Chaney tangle on the back stretch. Blaney would have four lapped cars between himself and Shaffer who had a lapped machine separating him and Duncan. With a clear track, Blaney would pull away as Shaffer struggled with the lapped cars. Duncan, Sauder, Hannagan and Henry would continue to wage a tremendous battle for third that would last until lap 28 when Travis Philo flipped hard in turn three with fifth place running Cap Henry spinning to avoid the crash.
With a green-white-checkered to finish the race – coupled with a clear track – Blaney would power away to the win over Shaffer, Duncah, Hannagan and Gravel. While the race for third was a dandy, the fans were also treated to NASCAR star Tony Stewart charging from 24th – last – to a seventh place finish.
Those who intentionally live off another’s labor will always want more free stuff!
