Mike Horne Photo
”We started on the pole, and we fell back a bit so I was fifth on lap 10, but I kept telling myself, it’s all about Saturday night,” said an excited Brady Short in his on track interview in victory lane with announcer Chris Stepan, after winning a $1,000 in the 25-lap feature on night two of the 11th Annual Open Wheel Modified Winternationals at East Bay Raceway Park, Wednesday night.
Normally behind the wheel of a sprint car, the Bedford, Indiana driver went on to explain, “My Dad had this Pierce car built for last year and this is the only time we run Modifieds. My only other Modified win was a preliminary night here in 2006.” The car carried sponsorship from Indiana Stone Works and Short Trucking with a SPEC (Scott’s Performance Engine Center) engine under the hood.
Short’s Father Don confessed they made changes all night long, mainly with weight distribution. He had high praise for East Bay saying, “The track was in good shape tonight. It was a little wet at the beginning, but that’s what it takes to have a good track at the end of the night.”
After a spin before a lap was officially recorded, the 24-car field led by Short and Kevin Weaver settled into a fast rhythm and clocked off 18 green-flag laps with Weaver showing the way for the first five laps. But, sixth place starter Kyle Bronson (a local from Brandon FL) had other ideas and seriously challenged Weaver for five laps before grabbing the inside groove in turn three and his Loose Gruff chassis pulled ahead to lead lap six.
By lap 10 Bronson’s All Florida Real Estate No. 40 car powered by a Jimmy Cope engine, had a six-car length advantage over Weaver, Shorty Kincaid, Buzzie Reutimann and Short who nearly spun in between turns one and two.
Short corrected himself and turned smooth, consistant laps that got him up to third by lap 15, which was big benefit when on lap 19, the leader Bronson spun in turn one as he was trying to maneuver through lapped traffic. Ironically, second place Weaver got caught up in the incident and had to pit to change a right front tire.
Short inherited the lead and just one lap later, second running Reutimann and Jeff Mathews rubbed side panels going down the front stretch bringing out the second yellow, sending Mathews to the pits to change tires. Next, a six-car pile up on the restart in turn one occurred when third place runner Perry Brown spun bringing out the only red flag of the Open Wheel Modified series so far. One more yellow for Alan Farley occurred on lap 22 setting the stage for a three lap shoot-out.
Short made it to the finish line first, but last year’s big winner in the finale, Rodney Wing was coming fast. Wing had started 19th and the Meridan MS driver brought his ride in the back-up Mathews car up to a second place finish. This car is a Larry Shaw chassis, whereas he was in a GRT car when he won here last year. “This deal came together about two months ago, with sponsors Jamie Slaton, Buddy’s Home Furnishings, Night Hawk Towing & Recovery and Superior Plumbing. After falling out of last night’s feature because of a broken shock, we were glad to get this finish.”
Third place finisher Reutimann’s body had damage to all panels and the crew took it off and went back to the shop to straighten it and bring it back tomorrow. The crew guys, Terry Peters and Donnie Reed made changes on the shock and tires all night to make the car better. Reutimann had set fast time last night, but dropped from the feature with mechanical problems.
Roger Crouse and Dale Mathison cracked the top five while Rick Aukland, Stanley Donahoo, Devin Dixon, Jason Schill and Mike Potosky ranked in the top ten. The first B-Main sent Dixon, Wing, Potosky and Rob Fuqua to the A-Main while Aukland, J.R. Hotovy, Scotty Kincaid and Denny Schwartz made it through the second B-Main. Wayne Hammond set fast time of the 55 cars and won the Strawberry Dash.
Qualifying Results:
1. 48 Wayne Hammond – 17.568; 2. 00D Stanley Donahoo – 17.633; 3. 01 Vic Vena – 17.643; 4. 2A Rick Aukland – 17.673; 5. 44 Dave Hess, Jr. – 17.715; 6. 9M Dale Mathison – 17.760; 7. 36 Brady Short – 17.865; 8. K12 Scotty Kincaid – 17.875; 9. 22 Dale Kelley – 17.901; 10. 33 Jeff Mathews – 17.967; 11. 11X Jason Schill – 17.978; 12. 21S Denny Schwartz – 17.993; 13. 00G Greg Reutimann – 18.060; 14. 29 Alan Farley – 18.124; 15. 83B Perry Brown – 18.134; 16. 71 Don O’Neal – 18.168; 17. 00 Buzzie Reutimann – 18.188; 18. 27 John Bradley – 18.190; 19. 4 Stormy Scott – 18.359; 20. 2H Brian Hayden – 18.374; 21. 40 Kyle Bronson – 18.396; 22. 3F Rob Fuqua – 18.402; 23. 0 Les Duellman – 18.417; 24. 2 Devin Dixon – 18.434; 25. 112 Steve Lance – 18.471; 26. M20 Mike Potosky – 18.487; 27. 13 J.R. Hotovy – 18.505; 28. 33X Rodney Wing – 18.545; 29. 27M John McCaul – 18.554; 30. 07P Tim Peterson – 18.628; 31. 7A Shane Sabraski – 18.680; 32. B12 Kevin Weaver – 18.701; 33. 02 Glen Underwood – 18.712; 34. 96 Curt Gelling – 18.760; 35. 58 Matt Fetterhoff – 18.788; 36. 1 Tommie Seets, Jr. – 18.794; 37. 8 Wesley Summers – 18.841; 38. 10 Tyson Turnbull – 18.846; 39. 9 Roger Crouse – 19.061; 40. C00L Chris Littrell – 19.136; 41. 19 Thomas Sigler – 19.139; 42. 6B Dave Baldwin – 19.305; 43. 38 Rick Cannata – 19.624; 44. 23 Terry Haven – 19.656; 45. 11 Steven Pfeifer – 19.827; 46. 27N Nate Bregenzer – 19.886; 47. 6M Terry McClintock – 19.965; 48. 999 Duanne Dale – 20.156; 49. 96X Dennis Haven – 20.744; 50. 62 Jeremy Newberry – 21.264; 51. Z1 Zac Oedewaldt – 23.164; 52. 03 Jason Combs – 23.353; 53. 77 Bruce Bregenzer – 33.877; 54. 25W Allen Weisser – N/T; 55. 89 Mike Spatola – N/T
1st Heat – 1)Shane Sabraski 2)Roger Crouse 3)Mike Potosky 4)Brian Hayden 5)Allen Weisser 6)Steven Pfeifer 7)Dave Baldwin
2nd Heat – 1)Kyle Bronson 2)Perry Brown 3)Devin Dixon 4)John Bradley 5)Rodney Wing 6)Terry McClintock 7)Bruce Bregenzer
3rd Heat – 1)Buzzie Reutimann 2)Dale Kelley 3)Rob Fuqua 4)Vic Vena 5)Tommie Seets, Jr. 6)Terry Haven 7)Rick Cannata
4th Heat – 1)Kevin Weaver 2)Thomas Sigler 3)Jeremy Newberry 4)Les Duellman 5)Zac Oedewaldt 6)Dennis Haven 7)John McCaul
5th Heat – 1)Brady Short 2)Stanley Donahoo 3)Rick Aukland 4)Steve Lance 5)Mike Spatola 6)Greg Reutimann 7)Tyson Turnbull
6th Heat – 1)Alan Farley 2)Glen Underwood 3)J.R. Hotovy 4)Nate Bregenzer 5)Wesley Summers 6)Wayne Hammond 7)Denny Schwartz
7th Heat – 1)Stormy Scott 2)Dale Mathison 3)Duanne Dale 4)Matt Fetterhoff 5)Chris Littrell 6)Dave Hess, Jr. 7)Curt Gelling
8th Heat – 1)Jeff Mathews 2)Jason Schill 3)Don O’Neal 4)Scotty Kincaid 5)Tim Peterson 6)Jason Combs DNS
1st B – Main (Top 4 go to back of A inside row) – 1)Devin Dixon 2)Rodney Wing 3)Mike Potosky 4)Rob Fuqua 5)John Bradley 6)Tommie Seets, Jr. 7)Brian Hayden 8)Steven Pfeifer 9)John McCaul 10)Les Duellman 11)Jeremy Newberry 12)Terry Haven 13)Terry McClintock 14)Bruce Bregenzer 15)Dave Baldwin 16)Rick Cannata 17)Zac Oedewaldt 18)Allen Weisser 19)Dennis Haven 20)Vic Vena
2nd B – Main (Top 4 go to back of A outside row) – 1)Rick Aukland 2)J.R. Hotovy 3)Scotty Kincaid 4)Denny Schwartz 5)Don O’Neal 6)Mike Spatola 7)Greg Reutimann 8)Nate Bregenzer 9)Chris Littrell 10)Tim Peterson 11)Curt Gelling 12)Wayne Hammond 13)Tyson Turnbull 14)Wesley Summers 15)Matt Fetterhoff 16)Dave Hess, Jr. 17)Duanne Dale 18)Steve Lance 19)Jason Combs DNS
A – Main (25 Laps) – 1)Brady Short 2)Rodney Wing 3)Buzzie Reutimann 4)Roger Crouse 5)Dale Mathison 6)Rick Aukland 7)Stanley Donahoo 8)Devin Dixon 9)Jason Schill 10)Mike Potosky 11)Kyle Bronson 12)Thomas Sigler 13)Rob Fuqua 14)Kevin Weaver 15)Jeff Mathews 16)Denny Schwartz 17)Shane Sabraski 18)Glen Underwood 19)Alan Farley 20)Perry Brown 21)Dale Kelley 22)Scotty Kincaid 23)J.R. Hotovy 24)Stormy Scott
Strawberry Dash – 1)Wayne Hammond 2)Les Duellman 3)Greg Reutimann 4)Tyson Turnbull 5)Curt Gelling 6)Zac Oedewaldt 7)Bruce Bregenzer