DirtonDirt.com Dispatches
Dispatches: Youth triumphs in Bernheisel battle
Jim Bernheisel (left) congratulates Bryan Bernheisel. (Barry Lenhart)
The latest notes and quotes from Dirt Late Model events nationwide from April 1-3, including Comp Cams Super Dirt Series action in Louisiana and Arkansas and Renegades of Dirt competition at Natural Bridge (Va.) Speedway (find XR Super Series Karl Kustoms Bristol Dirt Nationals coverage elsewhere):
Son outruns father
In an all-Bernheisel affair, Bryan topped his dad Jim in Saturday’s season opener at Selinsgrove (Pa.) Speedway to pick up a $3,000 Super Late Model victory.
“We raced each other clean and I know (Jim Bernheisel) would never let me win, and he definitely gave it his all,” Bryan Bernheisel said in victory lane. “To come back and win a race, right at a year after my accident last year and to do it at my home track, there’s just no better way to start a year. Not to mention, this is a brand-new car that me, my dad, and Brandon (Bernheisel) came up with… and it’s just awesome. Pill draw was obviously important, but I was so comfortable in this car, and it did everything I could’ve asked it to do.”
In a field of 19 Super Late Models, Jim started the night with a heat race win, while Bryan charged forward four spots to finish fourth.
With an all-Bernheisel front-row for the feature, Bryan outdueled his dad in the 25-lapper to capture his first victory of the season. Gene Knaub, Jim Yoder, and Hayes Mattern rounded out the top five in the track's 60th opener for stock cars.
“You know the first lap I ran (Bryan) pretty hard because we were side by side to the point that I almost thought I was going to run into him going into turn one, but luckily I didn’t because it would’ve crashed us both,” Jim Bernheise said. "Once he got to the lead, I settled into second. It was a great day for our team.” — Ben Shelton
A winning decision
Garrett Alberson and his Roberts Motorsports team weren’t ready to kick back and relax after their plans to run the World of Outlaws Case Late Model Series-sanctioned Illini 100 at Farmer City (Ill.) Raceway were scrapped by the event’s early cancellation.
So Alberson and Co. pointed their hauler south and rode and rode and rode … all the way to a Comp Cams Super Dirt Series doubleheader at ArkLaTex Speedway in Vivian, La., and I-30 Speedway in Little Rock, Ark. The round-trip from the team’s shop in Coal Valley, Ill., was a wee bit longer than a weekend at Farmer City — nearly 24 hours and 1,575 miles of driving as opposed to about 4 hours and 300 miles — but it was certainly fruitful as the 33-year-old native of Las Cruces, N.M., finished second Friday at ArkLaTex and captured Saturday’s 40-lap Will McGary Tribute at I-30.
Making sure he saw action on an off weekend from his Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series Rookie of the Year bid, Alberson had his Black Diamond machine purring all weekend but especially at I-30 where he paced the final 37 circuits for a $5,000 triumph.
While Alberson wasn’t able to immediately jump from the outside pole to the lead at the initial green flag of I-30’s headliner, he shot by Timothy Culp of Prattsville, Ark., on a lap-three restart and never looked back.
“This thing just fired up really good,” Alberson said in victory lane. “I was a little bit nervous on that first start. I think (polesitter) Logan (Martin) was playing games with me a little bit there, but I mean, that's part of racing, you know?
“But this car just launched really good, and then once I got that infield (low groove) and it took off really good. And then I just started kind of moving around over there trying to keep my speed up.”
A winner in Comp Cams competition at I-30 in 2016 while he was working at Black Diamond Race Cars in Shreveport, La., and racing around the region (he said the quarter-mile has “always been one of my favorite tracks and I’m super happy to come back and get a good run”), Alberson registered his second victory of the season.
“It always makes a big difference to being able to win a race and hat’s off to my crew,” said Alberson, whose first score of 2022 came in Jan. 12’s Wild West Shootout event at Vado (N.M.) Speedway Park. “They’ve just been working their butts off. Justin Tharp, my wife Dani, Ken (Roberts) and just everybody that comes anytime. It’s just been a blessing. It’s been awesome.”
Alberson’s productive weekend on a regional tour also proved that he’s learning his lessons well running against the Lucas Oil Series’s national stars.
“Congrats to Garrett,” said Mason Oberkramer of Broseley, Mo., who finished second in Saturday’s A-main at I-30. “He’s been doing awesome. I ran with him all year last year with MLRA and stuff, so watching him go run Lucas and all this stuff and come in here and hand it to us, that’s all right with me.”
Culp, Oberkramer tangle at I-30
Timothy Culp and Mason Oberkramer didn’t see eye-to-eye following a lap-14 restart scrape during Saturday’s 40-lap Comp Cams Super Dirt Series feature at I-30 Speedway — although they did end up sitting door-to-door for a moment during the ensuing caution period.
Shortly after contact between the two drivers’ machines resulted in Culp spinning out of second in turn two and Oberkramer going on to a runner-up finish, Oberkramer stopped his car in turn three for examination by series officials. Culp noticed Oberkramer’s No. 93 sitting on the inside of the track when he drove away from the scene of his demise and briefly pulled alongside the Missouri racer to express his displeasure.
Oberkramer, running third, had restarted on the outside of second-place Culp on lap 14 with both behind leader and eventual winner Garrett Alberson. Oberkramer surged slightly ahead of Culp off turn four, but as Oberkramer angled to the bottom entering turn one the pair made contact. The rubbing continued through the corners until Culp lost traction, slid up into Kyle Beard of Trumann, Ark., and twirled around.
The 29-year-old Oberkramer brushed off Culp’s protestations when asked about the get-together during the postrace ceremonies.
“I’ve watched people race just about every weekend whether we’re racing at a racetrack or not,” Oberkramer said. “These guys don’t give no mercy to nobody, so we came here to win and that’s what I was trying to do — get the job done for my guys. They've been working hard.
“Man, me and (eventual third-place finisher) Logan (Martin) battled hard for I don’t know how many laps, twentysomething laps. It was fun. I hate that Culp is mad, whatever it is, but we’re here to win. So I don’t care. I brought my friends to the racetrack with me and that’s what we’re gonna do.”
It was an encouraging outing for Oberkramer, who, with a March 26 weekly-show win at Legit Speedway Park in West Plains, Mo., snapped a 17-race stretch without a top-five finish dating back to a fourth-place Comp Cams run last Sept. 3 at Crowley's Ridge Raceway in Paragould, Ark. The victory was his first since Oct. 16, 2020, with the Lucas Oil MLRA circuit at Tri-City Speedway in Granite City, Ill.
“We’ve been struggling here lately and we finally started clicking on something (but) I just can’t get (time trials) down,” said Oberkramer, who never finished better than sixth in a B-main during February’s Wrisco Winternationals at East Bay Raceway Park in Gibsonton, Fla. “But we’ll get this timing-in thing down and we can start toward the front and not have to pass so many people (he started seventh at I-30). Maybe we can get one underneath our belt.”
Culp, meanwhile, implicated Oberkramer as the catalyst in their tangle, which prompted Culp to retire from further action.
“You can’t take a guy that rarely sniffs the front and expect him to not make bonehead moves when the opportunity presents itself,” Culp told DirtonDirt.com. “It’s really not a big deal to me. I’m not out there trying to be a big dawg or ride any coattails. I race with that guy about two times a year. It’s not like we’re going to have a beef or whatever. As far as I was concerned it was over when I limped off the track.
“I’ve been on the bad ends of deals before and it will happen again I’m sure — part of racing I guess.”
Culp, 31, made his third start of the season at I-30. His first action of 2022 with his GRT Race Car came the previous week with finishes of 16th and second in a Southern Touring Late Model Series twinbill at Cotton Bowl Speedway in Paige, Texas.
Flinner's third straight
PORT ROYAL, Pa. — As Colton Flinner swelled the race lead to more than five seconds Saturday at Port Royal Speedway, so came the leeway of easing through the final 10 laps.
But the Allison Park, Pa., driver didn’t entertain that philosophy. Working through traffic, Flinner forced it three-wide rounding the frontstretch with nine laps to go. The decisive move between the slower cars of Roy Deese and Jason Schmidt justified Flinner’s current buoyancy at the wheel.
“I just have so much confidence in this car right now,” Flinner said. “It’s unbelievable. It feels like a Cadillac. This thing drives like a Cadillac. It is the best race car I have right now.”
Flinner rolled on to score his third straight victory to start the new season at the Port Royal half-mile, the latest by eight seconds ahead of reigning track champion Dylan Yoder. Hall of Fame driver Gary Stuhler finished third, roughly another second behind Yoder, as early leader Trever Feathers (two laps led) finished fourth.
Two weeks ago, Flinner outworked one of Pennsylvania’s finest in Gregg Satterlee for a seven-second victory. And Flinner stormed to the track’s opening day victory from the sixth-starting position the first weekend in March.
Never before has Flinner started the year this well and with a trio of wins. It couldn’t be at a better time with the Lucas Oil Series set to take center stage next Sunday, April 10, at the place that’s developed into Flinner’s early playground in the 2022 campaign.
“I don’t even know where to start or what to say,” Flinner said. “I struggled for so many years, and to finally be able to win once at Port Royal — and I mean I’ve won in prior years, haven’t won in three years — and now I’ve won three in a row. I just really, really, really hope I can be this competitive and strong at the Lucas race. I’d do anything in the world to win this race next Sunday.” — Kyle McFadden
Bristol title breakdown
BRISTOL, Tenn. — With a pair of wins and a 12th-place finish in the first three events of the Karl Kustoms Bristol Dirt Nationals, Chris Madden of Gray Court, S.C., holds a 12-point lead over Ricky Weiss of Headingley, Manitoba, heading into Saturday’s $50,000-to-win finale at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway.
Madden (268 points) can clinch the title of $300,000 miniseries points fund — worth $100,000 with a victory or runner-up finish in Saturday’s 50-lap finale.
If Weiss (256) wins Saturday, Madden would need to finish at least third to remain a single point ahead of the Canadian. If Dale McDowell of Chickamauga, Ga., who is 17 points behind Madden, wins Saturday, Madden would need to finish fifth or better (regardless of where Weiss finishes) to secure the title.
It gets pretty tricky after that as a number of drivers are close enough to claim the $100,000 championship. A driver can make up 50 points in a single night, so Madden’s narrow lead is anything but safe. Behind McDowell (251), Chris Ferguson (250), Jonathan Davenport (250), Scott Bloomquist (244) and Devin Moran (235) are all within striking distance, while Brandon Overton and Darrell Lanigan, with 217 points each, still have a mathematical chance at the $100,000 championship, though it’s a long shot.
With the points fund doling out $50,000 for second and $25,000 for third, as well as a minimum of $5,000 to any driver in the top 24 who competes in three of the four events, there’s money to be made Saturday by everyone in attendance. — Robert Holman
New deal for Dohm
Zack Dohm is ready to start his 2022 racing campaign — albeit with a bit of a twist.
When the 33-year-old driver from Cross Lanes, W.Va., makes his season debut in Saturday’s season opener at Florence Speedway in Union, Ky., he won’t be behind the wheel of his familiar family-owned Longhorn No. 17. Instead, Dohm will pilot the Hatcher’s Auto Sales No. 6, a Scott Bloomquist-designed Team Zero Chassis that most recently was driven during February’s Georgia-Florida Speedweeks by Nick Hoffman of Mooresville, N.C. (Editor's note: Florence's event was cancelled on Friday afternoon due to an unfavorable forecast.)
“I race against them a lot,” Dohm said of the Danny Hatcher-owned team based in Campbellsville, Ky. “They say they can race about 25 times a year and they like to do Eldora (Speedway’s major events), and when they can’t race I’ll still run my Longhorn.”
Dohm’s full ’22 schedule is yet to be determined, but he expects to partner with Hatcher’s operation, which last September fielded a car for Ashton Winger of Hampton, Ga., at Eldora’s twin World 100s, for select weekends of action.
In a Facebook post announcing the ride, Dohm expressed thanks for the opportunity to Danny and Gene Hatcher (“You won’t find a better set of guys!”) and asserted that he’s looking forward to “representing them on and off the track.” He also gave his appreciation to his friend and fellow Dirt Late Model racer Dustin Linville of Bryantsville, Ky., noting that Linville helped connect Dohm and the Hatcher team.
Driving for Hatcher Motorsports will certainly be a unique experience for Dohm, who said he’s exclusively run family-owned equipment since he had a brief stint with Tracy Seymour’s Late Model team in 2010 when he served as a replacement driver because a detached retina sidelined his father Tim.
“I’ve been wanting something like this honestly,” Dohm related. “With (son) Will getting older I don’t wanna spend all day working and all night in the garage, and I still will get to race my car plenty.”
Dohm, whose eight feature wins in 2021 included $20,000 scores on July 4 at Beckley (W.Va.) Motorsports Park and Oct. 9 at Richmond (Ky.) Raceway, plans to make his first start of ’22 with his own No. 17 in April 8’s Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series-sanctioned Hillbilly 100 at Tyler County Speedway in Middlebourne, W.Va.
Changing weekend plans
The cancellation of this weekend’s World of Outlaws Case Late Model Series-sanctioned Illini 100 at Farmer City (Ill.) Raceway due to saturated grounds was announced late Thursday afternoon, giving teams with the race on their schedules time to find alternate events to enter. Not surprisingly, several prospective Illini competitors did.
Most notably, four-time WoO champion Brandon Sheppard of New Berlin, Ill., and the Rocket Chassis house car team decided to head south and tackle the second weekend of the Karl Kustoms Bristol Dirt Nationals at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway. The Mark Richards-owned operation’s big blue hauler was parked in Bristol’s pit area on Friday morning, adding Sheppard to the fields for the pair of $50,000-to-win shows on Friday and Saturday at the dirt-covered half-mile oval.
No other Farmer City transplants were expected to join Sheppard and Co. at Bristol, but other drivers now planning to race elsewhere this weekend include:
• Garrett Alberson of Las Cruces, N.M., whose Roberts Motorsports team opted to continue farther south following the Illini 100 news to enter the April 1-2 Comp Cams Super Dirt Series doubleheader at ArkLaTex Speedway in Vivian, La., and I-30 Speedway in Little Rock, Ark.
• Max Blair of Centerville, Pa., the WoO rookie coming off a $20,000 tour victory on March 26 at Cherokee Speedway in Gaffney, S.C., will stay active with his Viper Motorsports entry by entering Saturday’s $10,000-to-win Renegades of Dirt-sanctioned Super Late Model special at Natural Bridge (Va.) Speedway.
