Can Anybody Stop Kory Abbott in RE/MAX Legends at Orlando SpeedWorld ?
by Dave Westerman
Kory Abbott waited until the very last moment, but he came away with his fifth consecutive RE/MAX Legends Car feature win Saturday night at Orlando Speedworld.
Matt Bowers was running better than he had all season and he had the pole for the 25 lap Legends feature. Bowers took the early lead only to see Paul Schrein, Jr. have trouble on the opening lap taking his car to the pits with damage to the right front.
Bowers set the pace as the field jockeyed behind him. Abbott, who started sixth, slowly began to work his way to the front using caution flags on lap 14 for Shaughn McCormick's spin and for a tangle between Jimmy Norman and Bryan Silas on lap 21 to his advantage. On the lap 22 restart, Abbott powered his way into second but had a lot of ground to make up on the high-flying Bowers. Mitch Verhaagh spun with two laps remaining to bring out the caution giving Abbott the chance he needed. Abbott made his move coming out of turn two on the final lap and sped to the win over Bowers, Brandon Thomson, Chelsea Schillig and Andy Logan.
"If the race would have been 24 laps, I would have won" said a dejected, yet pleased, 16 year old Bowers. "We've had a lot of tough luck this year but we're turning things around now and we're really getting a lot faster," he said.
James Rodriguez did a great job coming back from a heat race incident to take sixth spot with Darin Coker, Jimmy Norman, Bryan Silas and Mike Verhaagh rounding out the top ten. Completing the finishers were Mark Bibeau, Steve Hart, Mitch Verhaagh, Dalton Bergman, Shaughn McCormick, Steve Turbeville, Paul Schrein, Jr. and Eric Eichelberger. Brad Sanders took the lead from heat race winner Mike Lago on lap three and sped to the win in the Pro Challenge feature. J.L. Snowden crossed the line in second but was set back to third spot for jumping a start giving Lago second place while Mike Smith was fourth over Sam White. White came back from a wreck in the heat race which saw his truck end up on its roof to get a top five finish.
Defending Florida Cracker Classics champion Jim Rahman got his first win of the year leading the Classic Car feature all the way. Norm Agostinho came out on top of a dandy three-way fight for second with Rodney Eary third and John Smith fourth. Eddie Thornton, subbing for Greg Helton, was fifth ahead of Ron Gustafson, Brad Nusberg, David Nunes and Jeff Wright.
Mark Hooven passed heat race winner Donovan Ponder on a late race restart and went on to claim the Bandelero Bandit win over Maxx Bennett, younger brother Shawn Hooven, Ponder and Zachary Harris. Completing the top ten were Tyler Rahman, T.J. Kirk, Nicholas Baluch, Joshua Monacelli, and Coty Bibeau.
After taking second to a North Carolina "invader" the previous week, Gerald White, Jr. was back to his winning ways taking both his heat and feature in the Bandelero Young Guns. Kristina Baluch, Kaleb Hearndon and Gerald Campbell trailed White to the checker.
Zach Colangelo added another win in the Bandelero Outlaws taking the heat and feature victories over teammate Brandon Duncan and Sam Gearhart.
Hurricane honors went to Bobby Crites, Jr. in a great duel with Fritz DeBerg and Blaise Fischer. Steve Houseman trailed the trio of leaders to the finish.
There will be no racing the next two Saturday evenings at Orlando Speedworld as the Legends Cars will be running a PBG Florida Tour event next Saturday at Desoto Speedway in Bradenton while the Bandelero classes will be added to next Friday nights program. The track will also be dark on June 3rd as crews clean up from Crash-A-Rama the night before.
