Bristol Motor Speedway
Notes: Feger's WoO win feeds desire to hit road
By Kevin Kovac
World of Outlaws Late Model Series
Jason Feger and his crew celebrate. (mikerueferphotos.photoreflect.com)
It appeared that UMP DIRTcar star Jason Feger's planned weekend of World of Outlaws Late Model Series action might be done when he experienced terminal engine woes as he took the checkered flag in a heat-race transfer spot on Friday at U.S. 36 Raceway in Osborn, Mo., for the first night of the Tri-State Late Model Challenge. | Francis wins at U.S. 36 | Feger wins at Charter Raceway Park
“This is the first time we ran this car and motor this year and the motor broke,” said a dejected Feger, who headed home to Bloomington, Ill., after briefly borrowing Rickey Frankel's machine for start money. “We have the car we've run all year back in the shop, but it has a thousand laps on it so I don't know if it can do two more shows.”
Alas, Feger, 31, decided to press on with his battle-tested equipment. He was in the parking lot of 34 Raceway in West Burlington, Iowa, when Saturday night's program there was called off due to rain, and he made the tow to Charter Raceway Park in Beaver Dam, Wis., on Sunday.
Feger certainly made the correct choice. Using the tired-but-still-strong Pro Power engine that he bought several years ago for $10,000 from fellow racer Ryan Dauber, Feger set fast time and came from outside the front row for a flag-to-flag, 40-lap victory, his first career WoO triumph.
While the win was the biggest of his dirt Late Model career, Feger was also proud of the fact that he gave chassis builder Bob Pierce, a Hall of Fame driver, his first victory in WoO competition.
“Bob Pierce has really helped me a bunch and now I think we've finally turned the corner with these cars,” Feger said. “It feels great to get Bob a World of Outlaws win, but I would've been just as excited if Stevie Sheppard (Jr.) was the first one to win (a WoO event) with one of these cars. Stevie is one of my teammates, one of my sponsors and a real good friend, and he had a real good run Friday (at U.S. 36) with his (Pierce) car. I was jumping up-and-down on the sidelines rooting for him."
While engine problems knocked Sheppard from contention, Feger sealed the deal. He hopes his huge victory will turn some heads and help fuel his desire to become a full-time Dirt Late Model racer.
“I think a lot of the World of Outlaws guys have respect for me,” Feger said. “I'm friends with most of them. We get along good, and they know I can race with them because we've done it before.
“I'd love to run with the World of Outlaws someday, but right now our program isn't at that level. I have real good equipment, but I don't have enough of it to get out and do it full time far from home.
“Maybe some people who were here tonight that hadn't seen me race might want to do something,” he continued. “But if nothing else comes from this win, it's more money to keep funding this deal myself.”
Smith's not quite satisfied
Looking at the results, Brady Smith had a pretty successful Tri-State Late Model Challenge with a fourth-place finish Friday at U.S. 36 Raceway and a third-place finish Sunday at Charter Raceway Park. He was the only driver in the top five both evenings.
But while Smith got himself back in rhythm after going six consecutive World of Outlaws Late Model Series events without a top-five finish, he clearly wasn't satisfied with his weekend. He felt he could have won both events.
There's no doubt that Solon Springs, Wis.'s Smith, who turns 32 on May 31, had Friday night's 50-lapper at U.S. 36 slip through his fingers. After turning up the wick and grabbing the lead from Steve Francis on lap 44, Smith was on his way to his first WoO victory of 2009 until he hit a hole in turn two on the final lap and tore his Bloomquist Race Car's left-rear tire off the rim, handing the victory to Francis. Smith did an amazing job of maintaining control of his disabled machine to salvage a fourth-place finish, but that was little consolation for the heartbreaking defeat.
What did Smith say to himself when the tire went down with the checkered flag so close? “You can't print it, I know that,” quipped Smith, a WoO regular for the first time in his career.
On Sunday at Charter Raceway Park, Smith dearly wanted to score a win in his home state. A large contingent of his family members and friends made the roughly four-hour drive south to the third-mile oval for the event, but he was unable to provide them a victory lane celebration. With passing in the feature made difficult by the moisture that remained in the extreme outside line and kept it loaded with traction, Smith's hopes likely took a critical hit when he drew the sixth starting spot. He fought tooth-and-nail to move up to third and he didn't get close to the leaders until a lap-34 caution flag — too little, too late.
Down in the dumps
UMP DIRTcar stalwart Steve Sheppard Jr. and his 16-year-old son Brandon had a busy weekend of WoO racing planned, but it ended abruptly when a promising night at U.S. 36 Raceway went horribly wrong. The elder Sheppard saw what was shaping up to be the best WoO performance of his career go south on lap 39.
After leading laps 1-20 of the 50-lap feature and then moving back in to challenge eventual winner Steve Francis for the lead following a lap-33 caution flag, the New Berlin, Ill., driver pulled off with a burnt piston during a caution period.
With Brandon Sheppard already having dropped out of the consolation race because of engine trouble, Steve Sheppard was disconsolate in the pit area as his team loaded up. He said that Friday's troubles left him with five broken motors, so he had no choice but to abandon his hopes of following the three-race swing.
Sheppard could only wonder what might have been after flirting with WoO glory.
“I don't know if I would've been able to get back by Francis, but I was gonna give ‘em all I had, I guarantee you that,” said Sheppard. “I think I had a shot, but we'll never know now.”
U.S. 36 provides a workout
Anyone who wondered how physically-demanding the blazing-fast, high-banked U.S. 36 Raceway was needed only to visit the 21-year-old Josh Richards. Sweaty and winded after the feature, Richards conceded that he was “worn out” after his run to a second-place finish. He had to battle his Rocket machine for the entire distance after miscalculating the direction the track surface would go.
“I was extremely tight to say the least,” said Richards, who started from the pole position but fell back as far as fifth. “We never expected the track to get wetter as the race went on, so we were off with the setup and that made it tough to get around the track.”
Richards regained the WoO points lead with his run at U.S. 36. He registered a quiet ninth-place finish on Sunday at Charter, but he nevertheless maintained a 14-point edge over Shane Clanton in the standings.
One up, one down
Tim Fuller showed signs of coming alive during his visit to the Midwest. He scored a season-best fifth-place finish at U.S. 36 and backed that up with a sixth (after running as high as third) at Charter.
Before heading to Delaware, Fuller was planning to travel to Port City Racing in Muskegon, Mich., after Sunday's show to do some testing with Integra Shocks reps at the nearby Winston Speedway. He expected Clint Smith to join him in the test session.
The struggling Smith is hoping some extra laps will help him get back on track. He departed Charter with a downtrodden disposition after a tough weekend — his ninth-place finish at U.S. 36 came after engine woes as he finished a heat race in a transfer spot forced him to make a hasty motor change (he received help from Fuller, Rick Eckert and Al Purkey, among others), and he was never a factor en route to a 16th-place finish at Charter.
Smith's poor performance at Charter was a distinct contrast to the way he ran in his last visit there on May 12, 2007. He finished second that evening and left the track as the WoO points leader (he's currently 10th in this year's standings).
Rain ruins race at 34
Hopes were high for a great Saturday-night of racing at the gorgeous 34 Raceway in West Burlington, Iowa, but the program ended up being canceled after heavy rain struck late in the afternoon — a frustrating development for the rain-plagued WoO because forecasts only called for a 30 percent chance of a shower.
The quick burst of precipitation turned the track's pit area into a muddy swamp. That was bad news for the more than 20 teams that were already unloaded and ready for action; just loading up their cars and pit carts left their trailers caked with far more mud than a typical night of racing. Backing up and driving the rigs out of the pit area proved to be a challenge as well; Shannon Babb was one of several drivers who had to be pulled out of the muck by a speedway tractor.
There was some fun to be had in the slop, however. Tim Fuller and Shane Clanton were seen throwing mud at each other, and Brady Smith's 4-year-old son, Travis, frolicked shirtless in the mud, belly-flopping onto the ground and slapping chunks of mud on unsuspecting crew members (with some coaxing from Rick Eckert).
Odds and ends
Defending WoO champion Darrell Lanigan experienced a rare occurrence: mechanical trouble in consecutive events that knocked him out of the series points lead. After terminal engine problems knocked him out of U.S. 36 Raceway's feature while running four on the 20th lap, he detected a minor motor issue after time trials at Charter and decided to pull out his backup car. He drove to an 11th-place finish in his backup machine. ... Steve Francis's series-leading third victory of 2009 at U.S. 36 Raceway was his first with his car owner Dale Beitler not in attendance. ... Shane Clanton continued to pile up top-10 finishes, placing eighth at both U.S. 36 and Charter. He's second in the points standings on the strength of eight finishes between 6-10 in 11 events; his lone top-five run was his Illini 100 victory at Farmer City (Ill.) Raceway. ... Vic Coffey, whose 10th-place finish at Charter marked his long-awaited first top-10 run of the 2009 season, visited Busch Stadium in St. Louis last Wednesday to take in a St. Louis Cardinals-Chicago Cubs baseball game with his Sweeteners Plus crew and Chub Frank's chief mechanic Brad Baum. ... Jordan Bland's 15th-place finish at Charter earned him the $250 Rookie of the Race bonus. The event also marked the first time the rookie points leader made a race without a provisional since the March 21 event at Battleground Speedway in Highlands, Texas.
