By: Scott Hammer
WAUSEON, OH – After a couple weeks of heavy rain washing out race competition, Mother Nature finally provided the perfect weather for racing Saturday evening.
The weather seemed to be to the liking of Britton, Michigan’s Devin Shiels who earned his third Oakshade Raceway feature win of the season and further solidified his points lead with only three weeks left in point competition.
The Chris Mize Memorial Hot Dog Races for the DIRTcar UMP Late Models and DCR Graphics Sportsman took center stage before the night’s feature events in which drivers raced one lap, got out of their cars and ate a hot dog and then got back in their cars to run one more lap.
Steve Kester and Dusty Moore were up first in the late models. Moore took advantage of Kester having some issues trying to down the hot dog that had him doubled over.
The Swanton, Ohio, driver was first to get back to his car for the second lap and left Kester in his dust to pick up the first hot dog race win of the night netting him $250 cash courtesy of Blackmarch Defense Labs, Hammer Down Racing Report, A2Z Mobile and Magalifts.
The next Chris Mize Memorial Hot Dog Race for the DCR Graphics Sportsman pitted “The Outlaw” Jesse Jones against the youngster, Roman Brown.
Both drivers came out hungry, but the motivation seemed to be on Brown’s side as he made up for a very slow start by overtaking Jones in the hot dog eating portion of the event.
Brown, from Adrian, Michigan, went on to pick up the win earning $150 cash from Blackmarch Defense Labs and A2Z Mobile and a $100 gift certificate for Ron Miller Race Cars.
Both Chris Mize Memorial Hot Dog Race winners also will receive an extra large two-item pizza courtesy of G&J Pizza in Clyde, Ohio and are eligible for the Chris Mize Memorial Hot Dog Race championship belt courtesy of Big D’s BBQ and Charlie K’s BBQ.
That belt will be awarded to the driver with the overall fastest time from the four events. There will be a Chris Mize Memorial Hot Dog Race coming up for both the Dominator Super Stocks (8/16) and the Compacts (8/30). Dusty Moore currently is fastest with a time of 2:49.88.
After a brief recovery from his hot dog race defeat, Steve Kester found himself starting on the pole of the 25-lap DIRTcar UMP Late Model feature event.
Kester would lead the first lap, but Devin Shiels would take command for good on lap two and pull away. Colin Shipley worked his way up to second and began to slowly chip away Shiels’ lead while working through some lapped traffic.
Trouble for John Miller on lap 10 would bring out the caution to tighten the field back up for a restart that was halted just after the return to green flag racing for a big pile up going in to turn one brought. It would be the first of a slew of caution flags that plagued the remainder of the race.
Shipley tried the inside and outside lanes on the Delaware double-file restarts but was unable to challenge Shiels for the lead. Then things went south for Shipley who fell off the pace turning second over to Jake Rendel.
Rendel also was unable to mount a serious challenge on Shiels, who went on to the easy win with Rendel settling for second.
Hot dog race winner Dusty Moore ended up second with Canadian racer Gregg Haskell climbing 11 positions from the start to finish fourth just ahead of Joe Smith.
Weston, Michigan’s Ryan Davis started on the pole of the DCR Graphics Sportsman feature and drove to his second consecutive feature win of the year.
Point leader Jesse Jones padded his point lead a bit more with a second-place finish after starting on the outside of row two.
Chris Williams and Dylan Jessan finished third and fourth respectively with Roman Brown hanging on to end up fifth and is now 68 points behind Jones in the point standings with three events remaining.
An incident filled Dominator Super Stock A Main hit the track next in which the second incident involved pole-sitter Mason Luttrell who lost it in the first set of corners and was collected by point leader Jake Rendel who was able to continue on without stopping. Luttrell had to restart at the tail.
Rendel, from Adrian, Michigan, fended off an early challenge from Jeff Foks Jr. and went on to win the caution-filled feature for his second win of the season.
Scott Hammer worked his way up to a second-place finish after starting eighth and slipped back to 12 points behind Rendel in the standings. Foks held off Jake’s brother, Jarrett Rendel, for second with Alex Krall coming from 11th starting position to finish fifth behind Jarrett.
The last race of the evening was the Compact A Main. Holgate, Ohio’s Ryan Okuley continued his dominance in the class this season earning his third consecutive and fifth overall feature win of the season.
The win extends his point lead to 71 over Megan Elliott who finished third in the race and 96 over Tim Streight who had an off night and ended up outside the top 15 finishers.
Detroit’s James Stamper had a decent night with a second-place finish. Ken Wells and Gavin Stambaugh were the rest of the top five race finishers behind Elliott.
The Vintage American Race Cars are returning Oakshade Raceway for Vintage Thunder on Dirt this Saturday, August 9th in addition to a full racing program consisting of DIRTcar UMP Late Models, DCR Graphics Sportsman, Dominator Super Stocks and Compacts.
Gates will open at 4pm with hot laps/qualifying at 6pm and racing at 7:15pm. Adult general admission is just $15, ages 6-11 are $5 and kids 5 and under are FREE! Pit passes are $30.