Jeremy Payne captures first O'Reilly MLRA win
by: Clint Brown

WHEATLAND, MO. (Sept. 9, 2006) - For the fourth time during the 2006 Thunder Tour the O'Reilly MLRA made the trip in to Wheatland, MO and a visit to Lucas Oil Speedway. When the checkered flag Springfield, MO's Jeremy Payne notched his first O'Reilly MLRA victory as well as his first late model triumph.

Current O'Reilly MLRA points leader Al Purkey lead the field down to the green and jumped out to the lead with Leslie Essary following through into the second spot. While Purkey opened up a slight lead Essary began to take on some heavy pressure from Alan Vaughn who was working the high side to his advantage, but just couldn't quite complete the pass. The field bunched up for a lap 3 caution when Randy McGraw's drive shaft exited his machine leaving it wounded in turn 1.

On the restart Vaughn quickly went back to the high side and shot around Essary and set out to track down Purkey who had opened a six car length advantage on the field. Two laps later Vaughn had worked up to Purkey's rear bumper while Leslie Essary had also tracked down the leaders to make it a three way battle for the lead. The spun car of Johnny Fennewald brought out the caution on lap 13 and as the field went back to green Vaughn once again used the high side and captured the lead from Purkey. Behind the front two a fierce three way battle between Essary, Scott Drake, and Jeremy Payne brewed as the trio went three wide with Drake coming out on top and the third position. Drake and Payne then began to battle side by side for the second spot as Vaughn continued to cruise around the high side of the track.

The yellow flew again on lap 18 and on the restart Payne used the high side to his advantage to take over second. Coming off of turn four Payne got a run on Vaughn and moved inside of him coming down the front stretch only to have Drake make it a three wide battle and they headed off down into turn 1. Payne came out of the middle to take over the lead with Drake right on his bumper while Vaughn dropped to third.

Payne continued to lead the way with Drake behind him holding off the challenge of Essary who had moved past Vaughn for the third spot. Drake kept challenging Payne on the low side, but the momentum that Payne carried off the corners allowed him to keep the lead and hold off Drake for the win with Essary, Vaughn, and Mark Voigt rounding out the top five at the finish.

A total of 43 cars signed into the pits with the four heat races being won by Vaughn, Johnny Fennewald, Payne, and L. Essary. Two B Features saw CJ Lyle and Steve Grotz take the wins to transfer on to the feature event.

Next up for the O'Reilly MLRA is a double header weekend with visits to LA Raceway in LaMonte, MO on Friday, September 15, and then Winston Speedway in Winston, MO on Saturday, September 16.

For O'Reilly MLRA information call 816-650-5063 or 816-305-6572 or visit them on the web at www.mlraracing.com.

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Full Results
Lucas Oil Speedway
September 9, 2006


Heat 1
1) Alan Vaughn, 2) Al Purkey, 3) Bob Fennewald, 4) Larry Jones, 5) David Turner, 6) Steve Grotz, 7) CJ Lyle, 8) Chris Smyser, 9) Jesse Hockett, 10) Jon Binning, 11) Rickey Frankel

Heat 2
1) Johnny Fennewald, 2) Randy McGraw, 3) Scott Drake, 4) Ken Essary, 5) Jesse Stovall, 6) Garry Billings Jr., 7) Justin Wells, 8) Burl Woods, 9) Shorty Acker, 10) Leroy Johnson, 11) Richard Foster

Heat 3
1) Jeremy Payne, 2) Shad Badder, 3) Mark Voigt, 4) Brad Looney, 5) Jason Bodenhamer, 6) Aaron Seabaugh, 7) Kevin Kaiser, 8) Donnie Gemes, 9) Reid Millard, 10) Jimmy Dowell, 11) David Barker

Heat 4
1) Leslie Essary, 2) Shane Essary, 3) Dennis Woodworth, 4) Brett LaFollette,
5) Larry Clawson, 6) Shannon Anastosopolos, 7) Sonny Findling, 8) Danny Atkinson, 9) PJ Haskins, 10) Matt Miller

B Feature #1
1) Lyle, 2) Stovall, 3) Turner, 4) K. Essary, 5) Frankel, 6) Smyser, 7) Billings, 8) Foster, 9) Johnson, 10) Millard, 11) Dowell, 12) Hockett, 13) Gemes, 14) Wells

B Feature #2
1) Grotz, 2) Bodenhamer, 3) Woods, 4) Findling, 5) Acker, 6) Anastosopolos,
7) Seabaugh, 8) Barker, 9) Kaiser, 10) Haskins, 11) Miller, 12) Atkinson,
13) Binning

A Feature
1) Payne, 2) Drake, 3) L. Essary, 4) Vaughn, 5) Voigt, 6) Badder, 7) Bodenhamer, 8) Purkey, 9) S. Essary, 10) Turner, 11) Lyle, 12) Woodworth,
13) Smyser, 14) Grotz, 15) Jones, 16) Barker, 17) Clawson, 18) J. Fennewald,
19) K. Essary, 20) LaFollette, 21) Looney, 22) Woods, 23) B. Fennewald, 24) McGraw