IT'S TIME TO RACE!!

April 10, 2004 FSCR Allison Tops SpeedWorld SLM while it's a Hoot in Modifieds by Dave Westerman It was a battle of east coast vs. west coast in Friday night in Super Late Model action at Orlando Speedworld with Jared Allison from the Atlantic side of the State of Florida holding off all challengers to pick up his first win of the 2004 season. Allison nabbed the first heat win in his Toby's Nose Filters sponsored Chevy and earned the pole for the 25 lap feature with second heat winner Eric Deffendall on the outside pole with Allison taking a quick lead only to see caution out early on lap two as Scott Seither pounded the turn one wall in his new car. Seither was unhurt but the car was not as lucky. Seither would end up with a cash "hard luck award" collected from the fans earlier in the night. The restart saw Allison back out front while Deffendall gamely raced Mike Hindgardner side by side for three laps before Hindgardner got the advantage. Hindgardner, from Largo on Florida's Gulf Coast, moved in on Allison, but with the race running the rest of the way under green, Allison was just a bit better in lapped traffic while Hindgardner had to worry about protecting his second spot from a late charge by Ricky Wood. Allison took the checker several car lengths in front of Hindgardner while Wood settled for third. Deffendall slipped to fourth at the finish while rookie Patrick Conrad took fifth spot. Ronnie Roach, Bobby Fleckinger, Rich Bates, Joey Strehle and Dick Ruckh rounded out the top ten. Allison, who has been struggling to get his new car running right was physically worn out after the race. "We still have a long way to go with this thing and it was a bear to drive but I want to thank B.J.'s (McLeod's) dad for coming over and giving me a few pointers after they were unable to start the feature," said Allison. "The things he told me helped quite a bit. The car is still far from perfect, but there aren't too many people who are your main competition who will come over and give you a hand when you're struggling and I appreciate that," he said. It was all a "Hoot" in the Modified feature as Jim "Hoot" Flynn left the rest of the field in his dust as he claimed his first Modified win of the year leading every lap in his Business Archives open wheeler. "The last two times I was leading here on the last lap I hit the wall, so I was really sweating out that final lap," said the happy winner in victory lane. Hoot and his crew were still seen "partying" in the pits as the lights were being turned out. The best race in the Modified feature was for second between Ricky Wood and Wayne Heckle with Wood holding off Heckle's furious charge to take the runner-up spot. In an interesting turn of events, a unidentified fan came back to the pits and gave Heckle $400 so he could buy new tires for the 50 lap FASCAR UPM Pro Modified tour race next week saying he'd been watching Heckle race for years and wanted to help him out. "I wasn't planning to run next week, but I guess I am now!" said a surprised Heckle. Matt Wheeler and Chad Pierce rounded out the top five in the Modified feature. Flynn also won the heat. With Earl Beckner and Dale Clouser, the only drivers to win Sportsman class features this year, missing in action, defending Sportsman champion Richard Hight had a relatively easy time of it winning both the heat and feature race in his Fine Finishes Antiques and Restoration Chevy. Hight led all the way in a perfectly handling car easily outdistancing Donnie Smith and Justin Hall for the win. Bobby Joe Woodley came home fourth followed by Bruce Gayton in fifth. You needed a program to figure out what was going on in the Super Stock class. Andy Nichols was unable to race his #66 Monte Carlo, so Rick Johns was scheduled to fill in for him. When Johns didn't show up, Bill Loomis took over the ride because the car he was slated to drive hadn't made it to the track yet. It all worked out to Loomis' favor as he ended up on the pole for the feature and he led all the way to claim the win, his first of the year. This race was a pretty tame one for Super Stock standards as only two caution flags were needed, one for a turn two tangle on the opening lap that knocked out the car of Donald Springer and sent Paul Cornelius to the pits for repairs and another on lap five for the smoking car of John Castro, who was having transmission problems. Loomis took a fairly easy win over Dave Wright, who continues to get faster every week, and Bob Beiler. Bobby Riley and Brett Woodley completed the top five. Castro and Beiler won the Super Stock heat races. Richie Laszlo took yet another Strictly Stock win in his Ford Fairmont Futura over Jim Laslie and the four-banger Chevy Corsica of Jared Cawley. RESULTS - ORLANDO SPEEDWORLD - 4/9/04: SUPER LATE MODEL (25 Laps): 1) Jared Allison #18 2) Mike Hindgardner #15 3) Ricky Wood #33 4) Eric Deffendall #26 5) Patrick Conrad #2 6) Ronnie Roach #14 7) Bobby Fleckinger #34 8) Rich Bates #4 9) Joey Strehle #83 10) Dick Ruckh #96 11) Josh Schmidt #119 12) Scott Seither #00 13) Bobby Joe Woodley #77 DNS B.J. McLeod #78 DNS Doc McKinney #57 MODIFIEDS (15 Laps): 1) Jim "Hoot" Flynn #57 2) Ricky Wood #81 3) Wayne Heckle #9 4) Matt Wheeler #96 5) Chad Pierce #51 6) Ken McCracken #56 7) Ron "Blackie" Blackard #4 NS Skip Honaker #2 PORTSMAN (15 Laps): 1) Richard Hight #23 2) Donnie Smith #48 3) Justin Hall #50 4) Bobby Joe Woodley #98 5) Bruce Gayton #93 6) Spencer Lemmerman #6 7) Bill Hall #56 8) Cory Kaiser #48K DNS Billy Cuddy #64 UPER STOCK (15 Laps): 1) Bill Loomis #66 2) Dave Wright #65 3) Bob Beiler #44 4) Bobby Riley #64 5) Brett Woodley #90 6) Roger Benton #14 7) Jason Foster #49 8) Robert Remus #16 9) Paul Cornelius #31 10) Bruce Gayton #24 11) John Castro #5 12) Matt Stichman #721 13) Duane Freed #28 14) Ted Head #92 15) Donald Springer #118 TRICTLY STOCK (15 Laps): 1) Richie Laszlo #07 2) Jim Leslie #45 3) Jared Cawley #231 Have an opinion on this story? Post a message on our Message Board! news@karnac.org or send a letter to the editor!