Saturday night was an action packed night at the county’s action attraction, the Citrus County Speedway. Starting off the nights events were the time trial qualifying laps for the Sportsman division, to help determine the starting order, for their 50 lap $1000 to win feature. When the dust settled, it was Aaron Williamson (13) who took the top qualifier award with a fast lap of 14.75 seconds around the ¼ mile. Following Williamson in qualifying were Brandon Morris (56) in 2^nd, and Cody Stickler in 3^rd. After some help from one of the speedways young fans, 11 year old Xavier, the inversion dice roll come up with a 1. That meant that the fans would choose between 2,4, or a 6 row inversion to start the feature. As usual, the fans chose for a 6 row inversion, putting your top qualifier starting in the 11^th position for the green. Leading the field to the green now, was the duo of Kevin Harrod (34) and Tom Posavec (01). At the drop of the green, 3^rd place starter Dennis Neighbor Sr. (83) would go to the top spot followed by 5^th place starter Mike Bresnahan (69). Caution would come out on lap 4, for a spin, and Neighbor would give up his lead when he headed to the pits with a mechanical problem. Bresnahan would bring the field to green with Chad Pierce (157) now in 2^nd, and Cody Stickler (99) in 3^rd. Stickler would make the move on Pierce for 2^nd on lap 6 and set his sights on the leader Bresnahan. Over the next 15 laps, Stickler and Bresnahan would wage one of the closest battles of the night, Stickler would try to make the pass several times, only to have the door slammed shut as they entered the corner. Finally on lap 21, Stickler would kick the door wide open, when contact would send Bresnahans 69 machine up the banking in turn 1. Stickler and fast qualifier Williamson would both make the move on the low side, and Bresnahan would settle back into the 3^rd position. Despite several short cautions over the last half of the race, Stickler was able to pull away on each restart, and go on to take the win. Williamson would come from his 11^th starting position to finish 2^nd and take home the hard charger honors also. Bresnahan would hold out for 3^rd under heavy pressure from Brandon Morris (56) and Richie Smith (4) over the final 5 laps. Point contender Ernie Reed (55) once again had a rough night, being involved in two incidents, which left his racer wounded. Reed would ultimately retire to the pits, and take another big blow to his championship chase hopes. Sticklers win broke the tie atop the points standings with Morris, and now gives him a 7 point lead in the chase for the championship. (more…)