by Dave Westerman
It was yet another great evening for racing at Auburndale Speedway Saturday and the kids had a great time too with a big trick or treat session on the front straight at intermission that saw most of them carrying bags of candy back up into the grandstands that were nearly busting at the seams.
Another nice field of Legend Cars saw point leaders Jake Perkins and Gerald White, Jr. taking heat race wins earning front row starting spots for the 25 lap feature. White jumped to the early feature lead as Perkins began to fall back in the outside groove all the way to fifth spot. White’s advantage lasted all of one lap as Kory Abbott zipped by on lap two and began to set a blistering pace. Problems for Leroy Moore slowed the field on lap six.
Abbott continued to lead White and Justin Brown as the caution came out again on lap 11 as both Dave Gleason and Anthony Cataldi slapped the backstretch wall in separate areas. Cataldi had the bigger hit and slid down the track where Corey White ran up and over him, nearly flipping. Both cars were out of the event but the drivers were unharmed. Gleason continued although his right rear tire had most of the air knocked out of it causing Gleason to run at reduced speed the rest of the race.
From that point, the final 14 circuits were run under green with Abbott taking a relatively easy win, his third of the year in just four starts. As usual, Abbott made it to the track from his “day job” as a stunt driver at the Disney Hollywood Studios just before race time, got no practice at all, and had to start at the rear of his heat race finishing second behind White.
White’s second place finish allowed him to pick up a few points on point leader Perkins who came home fourth behind third place Brown. After starting deep in the field, Devin McLeod drove to a fifth place finish. Rounding out the top ten were Lynn Wiles, Seth Adams, Austin Blankenship, Joey Collins and Dakota Baggette.
The Outlaw Modified Series made their third and final appearance of the year and what a feature race this one turned out to be. Three-time Series champion Doug Hopper and Ric Mills topped the heat races but it would be John Gula and
2010 point leader Tom Meyer sitting on the front row for the main event.
Gula led the opening lap but Meyer forged ahead on lap two with Hopper moving into second. The two would start a knock-down-drag-out battle for the lead as Mills moved to third but could only watch the action going on in front of him. Hopper took the lead from Meyer during lap 14 but a caution for a minor spin negated Hopper’s pass and Meyer reassumed the point.
Meyer and Hopper continued their battle while Mike Endee moved into third spot and began to pressure both leaders. When Meyer and Hopper touched going into turn one a lap later, Endee took over second. Lap 19 saw Endee try to make a low move on Meyer but he was cut off, slipped in the dirt on the low side of turn one and spun.
Now it was back to the Meyer/Hopper battle but Meyer managed to hold on the final six laps for his fifth win of the year and add to his points lead. Hopper was a very close second with Mills third, Don Peacock fourth and Endee recovering for fifth. Ricky Gervasi, Gula, Mel Mel Braden, Craig Sherar and Mike Donahue completed the top ten.
Lance Daubach passed heat winner Mark Medeiros for the lead on lap three and le