Turner Top MARS At Midway
by: Ronnie Williams
LEBANON, Mo. (July 10) — Rookie Eric Turner of Springfield, Mo., overtook
four-time series champion Terry Phillips of Springfield amid traffic on the
26th lap at Midway Speedway and raced to his third victory of the season on
the O'Reilly MARS DIRTcar Series. Turner's victory paid $2,500 ties him with
Wendell Wallace of Batesville, Ark., as the winningest series driver in
2009.
Polesitter Shane Essary of Aurora, Mo., led the first lap before Phillips,
who started outside the front row, took command. Phillips held the lead as
most of the cars filtered into the lower groove at the 3/8-mile oval.
Phillips, however, moved up a lane trying to put a lap on Wesley Briggs, and
Turner slipped underneath to make the lap-26 pass. Phillips fought back two
laps later to regain the lead, but a lap-28 caution for Jeremy Payne's spin
negated the pass, restoring Turner to the point.
Cautions on laps 32 and 33 delayed Turner's victory, but he held on to take
the checkered flag ahead of Phillips and Jack Sullivan of Greenbrier, Ark.
Hometown driver Brandon McCormick was fourth and Justin Wells of Aurora
rounded out the top five, one spot ahead of Essary.
In Support Action Donnie Miller grabbed the lead making a 3 wide pass on the
opening lap and held off repeated challanges from point leader Bob Gustin
and a late surge from last weeks winner Sundance Keepper in taking his
second FactoryStock feature this season.Keepper who started 11th came
charging late in the race to challange while early contender Ken Hicks found
his bid to the winners circle cut short by spinning in turn 2 and then
retired 1 lap later with problems.Dylan Keepper and Mike Teeters rounded out
the top 5 in an action packed feature.
The Bombers saw 3 wide racing as Jack Hamer brought the field to the green
flag with Matt Pilanr grabbing the early lead.Mike Willoughby overtook
Pilant on lap 3 as Hamer and Pilant fought for position.On lap 7 Shawn
Strong came to the runner-up spot and began his challange for the lead.With
side by side racing up front and throughout the pack,Strong would take
advantage of the features only yellow on lap 11 and moved around Willoughby
to grab his fourth feature win of the season with Willoughby making a last
lap effort for the win would finish second followed by point leader Joe
Francis,Rodney Yost and Hamer in the top 5.
The B-Mod feature saw 23 cars take the green flag with Rob White jumping to
the early lead.The race was restarted as a pile-up in turn 4 involving Jeff
Albright Jr,Json Otto,Derek Cook,Andy Beauchamp,Brian Webster and Derek
Brown.On the restart White grabbed the lead again with Reggie Jackson
following along with Josh Woody and many others.On lap 2,Mickey Burrell took
to the top groove and held off several challanges by Tyler Brown and JC
Morton to capture his second win of the season.Rex Merritt and early
contender Woody rounded out the top 5.
Action continues next Friday night with action in the Factorys,USRA
Modifieds,B-Mods,PureStocks and LateModelSportsman along with a special
pitstop challange event.Gates open at 5 with Racing at 8PM
Results
MARS LateModels-A Ft-(1) Eric Turner-Hermitage (2) Terry
Phillips-Springfield(3) Jack Sullivan-GreenBrier,Ark (4) Brandon
McCormick-Lebanon (5) Justin Wells-Aurora (6) Shane Essary-Aurora (7) Chris
Smyser-Lancaster (8) Chris Morelock-Springfield (9) Ken Essary-Cape Fair
(10) Jeremy Kelly-Walnut Grove (11) Brent Kreke-O'Fallon,ILL (12) Tony
Jackson Jr.-Lebanon (13) Rylan Long-Greenfield (14) Darrell MooneyhamVerona
(15) Jeremy Payne-Sprignfield (16) Phil Edmondson-Marionville (17) Kris
Jackson-Lebanon (18) John Farmer-Clinton (19) Wesley Briggs-Phillipsburg
(20) Steve Johnson-Joplin (21) Leroy Johnson-Springfield (22) Adam
Brown-Aurora
1st Ht-1)Phillips 2)Turner 3)Sullivan 4)Mooneyham 5)Edmundson 6)K.Jackson
7)Briggs 8)Farmer
2nd Ht-1)Payne 2)Wells 3)Jackson Jr 4)Long 5)K.Essary 6)A.Brown 7)Johnson
3rd Ht-1)S.Essary 2)McCormick 3)S.Johnson 4)Morelock 5)Smyser 6)Kelley
7)Kreke
FactoryStocks
A Ft-1)Donnie Miller-Houston 2)Bob Gustin-Osage Beach 3)Sundance Keepper-Springfield
4)Dylan Keepper-Hurley 5)Mike Teeters-Lebanon 6)Tim Petty-Niangua 7)Tyson
Troutman-Houston 8)Chad Smith-Crocker 9)Ben Solberg-Springfield 10)Brian
Webster-Richland 11)Matt Wilson-Mt Grove 12)Lonnie Henderson-Lebanon 13)Ken
Hicks-Cross Timbers 14)Bill Scharr-St Roberts
1st Ht-1)S.Keepper 2)Webster 3)Miller 4)Petty 5)Hicks 6)Henderson 7)Solberg
2nd Ht-1)Gustin 2)Troutman 3)D.Keepper 4)Scharr 5)Smith 6)Teeters 7)Wilson
Bombers
A Ft-1)Shawn Strong-Republic 2)Mike Willoughby-Springfield 3)Joe
Francis-Lebanon 4)Rodney Yost-Squires 5)Jack Hamer-Ava 6)Matt Pilant-Lebanon
7)Keith Cheever-Lebanon 8)Nick Whitehead-Springfield 9)Kolt Barker-Lebanon
10)Kevin Forshey-Dixon 11)Josh Lewis-Stoutland 12)Brian Warner-Phillipsburg
13)Monk Barker-Lebanon 14)Korey Barker-Lebanon 15)Andrew Cheever-Lebanon
1st HT-1)Hamer 2)Willoughby 3)K.Cheever 4)Whitehead 5)Strong 6)M.Barker
7)Korey Barker 8)Kolt Barker
2nd Ht-1)Pilant 2)Francis 3)Yost 4)Warner 5)Lewis 6)Forshey 7)A.Cheever
B-Mods
A Ft-1)Mickey Burrell-Fair Grove 2)Tyler Brown-Stoutland 3)JC
Morton-Springfield 4)Rex Merritt-Billings 5)Josh Woody-Buckhorn 6)Rob
White-Lebanon 7)Jason Otto-Richland 8)Reggie Jackson-Lebanon 9)Andrew
Smith-Willard 10)Brian Millsap-Lebanon 11)Jeff Albright Jr-Lebanon 12)Ted
Ballinger-Halfway 13)Matt Hamner-Camdenton 14)Greg Strong-Nixa 15)Andy
Beauchamp-Springfield 16)Shawn Eggerman-Willard 17)Tim Ballinger-Fair Grove
18)Brian Myers-Lebanon 19)Brian Cook-Lebanon 20)Brian Webster-Richland
21)Micheal Stake-Lebanon 22)Derek Cook-Lebanon 23)Derek Brown-Stoutland
1st HT-1)White 2)Jackson 3)Brown 4)Merritt 5)Stake 6)Eggerman 7)Strong
8)B.Cook
2nd Ht-1)Otto 2)Webster 3)Woody 4)Ted Ballinger 5)Smith 6)Millsap 7)D.Cook
8)Tim Ballinger
3rd HT-1)Albright 2)Burrell 3)Morton 4)Beauchamp 5)D.Brown 6)Hamner 7)Myers
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