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Payne holds off Turner in MARS, NCRA, CLMA Showdown
by: David Smith, Jr.
JETMORE, KANSAS (June 4, 2010) - Jeremy Payne of Springfield, Missouri held
off race long challenges from Eric Turner to win the twenty lap qualifying
feature Friday night on the first night of the 1st annual "Sunflower State
Showdown" at the Great American Dirt Track in Jetmore, Kansas. The race was
a co-sanctioned event with the MARS DIRTcar and CLMA DIRTcar series.
Payne out ran pole sitter and MARS DIRTcar series rookie of the year
contender Gary Christian into turn one at the start of the feature event
with fourth starting Turner falling in behind in the runner up position.
Payne, aboard the Andy's Frozen Custard/Port City Racing/New Vision Graphics
sponsored GRT chassis, had the car set up perfectly and by lap five had
opened up to a ten car length advantage.
Behind the two front runners the battle for third heated up with Corey
Zeitner and former four time series champion Kelly Boen, aboard the Terry
Pannell owned #33x, battled side by side for position for several laps with
Boen taking over the position by lap five.
The first of two cautions would wave on lap six when Patrick Johnson spun to
a stop in turn two. After an ill fated attempt on the restart due to another
caution the race finally resumed with Payne again motored his Haftfield
Racing Engines out front.
But the battle for the runner up position waged as Boen began working the
bottom of the three-eighths mile track and got underneath Turner several
times but could never gain the momentum to overtake the position.
Eventually Turner would pull slightly away from Boen and the current MARS
DIRTcar series points leader then set his sights on the leader Payne. By the
races midway point, Paynes advantage had shrunk to two car lengths with
Payne working down low and Turner up top.
On lap seventeen lapped traffic came into play and this allowed Turner to
close to within one car length of the leader. While Turner would pull even
with the leader on a couple occasions, Payne had the setup and the fast way
around the track and would hold off any further challenges in the final laps
to pick up the victory.
"We have really struggled here lately with this new car (GRT), said an
enthusiastic Payne. "Me and Terry (Phillips) have really worked hard on
figuring this car out and I think we got it going now as the car just ran
great. I saw him (Turner) once but I felt comfortable enough where I was
running on the track that I thought we would be okay."
Turner held on for the runner up position with Boen settling in for third.
It was a battle of champions for the fourth position with MARS DIRTcar
series champion Terry Phillips getting the better of O'Reilly/NCRA champion
Kyle Berck in a race long battle. Jack Sullivan, John Anderson and Eddie
Krichoff rounded out the top eight and locked themselves into Saturday
nights $10,000 to win feature finale lineup.
The ten lap heat races for the twenty-seven car field were won by Payne,
Zeitner, Turner and Anderson.
There will still be plenty of chances to fill out the twenty-plus car field
for Saturday nights finale at the Great American Dirt Track. Heat races are
scheduled for 7:00 PM.
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