Charlotte, NC 11/11/12– Veteran Jay Fogleman came in to this weekend’s PASS South North vs. South Shootout 150 at the Caraway Speedway as a man on a mission. That mission was pretty plain and simple; win the race and let the championship points fall where they may. Well consider it mission accomplished for the Durham, North Carolina driver as he picked up his second win of 2012, and more importantly gave his Bull City Racecars race team a shot at the series championship heading into the final race of the season at the Concord Speedway coming up on November 24th.
“We knew coming in to these last two races it was going to take everything going just right for us to have a shot at this championship, and it just so happened to go our way this weekend. I knew we had a good car here this weekend in practice, but I was kind of all over the place with Tate (son of Jay Fogleman) making his PASS debut I never have had time to even think about the championship or capitalizing on a good run,” said Foglman in victory lane. “Right now I’m just happy to be back in victory lane, and the fact I can always remind Tate years from now that the first time we raced against each other I beat him.”
Jay Fogleman picked up the victory after starting ninth in the twenty five car starting field that saw several newcomers making their PASS South Series debut such as Casey Hillenburg, Rich Gould, and twelve year old Tate Fogleman, son of the elder Fogleman mentioned above. Despite a flurry of newcomers it was the 2010 series champion, Preston Peltier, that jumped out to the initial lead after drawing the number one pill in the series redraw of the top ten qualifiers. No quicker than going green the yellow flag would waive on lap one for in incident involving a trio of youngsters all under the age of sixteen when Tate Fogleman spun collecting Casey Hillenburg and Gray Gaulding along the way. All three drivers would be able to continue despite their damage.
Quickly after going back green Brandon Ward showed the healthy crowd in attendance how strong his #62 machine was as he moved into the second position just before aggressive racing between Jordan Anderson and Bill Catania resulted Catania going for a spin off the front bumper of Anderson’s machine bringing out the yellow once again on lap twenty-two. The restart put Ward in his best position to make his bid for lead which he overtook just three laps later sending Peltier fading and championship leader Kyle Grissom into the runner-up spot.
Over the next forty-seven laps the action on track stayed clean and green before the lead lap cars starting catching slower lapped machines just short of the halfway point of the 150 lap race. Officials were forced to slow the field on lap sixty-nine due to debris on track bunching the field back together. With Ward out front it gave the rest of the top five; Grissom, Landon Cling, Fogleman, and Peltier as shot at challenging for the lead. Ward continued to be just too strong for the rest of the field at the time maintaining his race lead as the race continued under green.
Action outside the top five heated up in hurry after the halfway point, in particular the battle for seventh between Jordan Anderson and Ben Rowe. The Maine driver came into North vs. South Shootout 150, which doubled as a PASS National Series event, as the national points leader and was attempting to make a pass for seventh over Anderson when Anderson turned his #19 down the track coming off the exit of turn four sending Rowe spinning and damaging the right front of his #4 ride. The result lead to Rowe losing laps on the track and eventually the national points lead to Fogleman at night’s end.
The action between Anderson and Rowe was just the start of an action packed second half as the top five now decided it was time to show their stuff in particular Fogleman and a rather quiet Ross Kenseth who maintained a top six running position all afternoon long. Slight contact between Ward and Fogleman battling for the lead on lap 104 resulted in Fogleman powering his way to the front and never looking back. Fellow championship contenders Kyle Grissom and Brandon Ward set up the afternoon’s final caution period when two made contact sending Grissom’s #31 car spinning while battling for fifth with just sixteen laps to go.
Despite one final restart Fogleman proved to be too much as he crossed the finish line with a three car lengths lead over second place finisher Ross Kenseth. Landon Cling found his way back to the podium after recent struggles with teammate Nate Caruth finishing right behind him in fourth after qualifying sixteenth. Preston Peltier hung on for a fifth place finish after struggling in the closing laps to round out the top five.
The results at this weekend’s event has set up what should be an incredible fight to the finish to crown the 2012 PASS South Series champion as the “BIG BOYS WITH THE BAD FASTTOYS” travel to the Concord Speedway located in Concord, North Carolina on Saturday November 24th for the final race of the 2012 season. For more information on the PASS South Series or any of the PASS sanctioned series visit http://www.proallstarsseries.com/.
PASS South/National
North vs. South Shootout 150
Caraway Speedway-Sophia, NC
Official Results
1) #4 Jay Fogleman
2) #25 Ross Kenseth
3) #29 Landon Cling
4) #19 Nate Caruth
5) #26 Preston Peltier
6) #Q104 Kevin Powell
7) #19sc Jordan Anderson
8) #62 Brandon Ward
9) #54 Logan Ruffin
10) #28 Jared Irvan
11) #31 Kyle Grissom
12) #98 Jody Measamer
13) #12 Scott Hensley
14) #34 David Clark
15) #101 Karl Weber
16) #4n Ben Rowe
17) #48 John Batten
18) #09 Randy Gentry
19) #2 Gray Gaulding
20) #47 Rich Gould
21) #30 Casey Hillenburg
22) #18 Bill Catania
23) #4f Tate Fogleman
24) #2n Matt Matheson
25) #71 Jimmy Doyle