Week number two of Auburndale Speedway’s Winter Sunday racing series saw much warmer weather than on the opening Sunday last week and plenty of great racing action as it was “DARN Day at the Races” with fans getting the opportunity to support DARN that helps raise awareness of farming and agriculture to the youth in Central Florida through various programs along with supporting local school’s FFA and 4-H programs. It was such a warm day that several fans came up with a new month for Florida – “Januly.”
The headlining event of the day was the season opener for the Sunshine State Challenge Series Mod Minis. Defending Auburndale Speedway champion Chris Spring of Auburndale set quick time at 15.16 seconds followed by the 15.22 lap of New Smyrna’s Tyler Simpson.
It would be Jimmy Frazier leading the opening pair of laps before Simpson breezed by bringing a very fast Jeff Firestine along with him. Simpson took off and hid from the field as a great battle ensued between Firestine, Frazier and Spring. A caution for debris on the back stretch slowed the action and allowed the field to close on Simpson. On the restart, both Firestine and Frazier got by the leader while Spring got extremely loose trying to grab the second spot and fell again back to fourth in the running.
Things took a decisive turn when Mike Kerrivan spun with just a few laps remaining. Track officials penalized leader Firestine for passing on the inside before the green flag flew on the last restart and he was set back several positions for this restart. Simpson again found himself the leader and he proceeded to make it look easy the rest of the way as Spring was unable to close the gap on the young driver who sped a huge victory. Spring claimed second ahead of Frazier and Firestine who was none too happy about the way things turned out. Ray Miller had a steady run for fifth trailed by Anthony Lapoint, Wayne Stenstrom, Kerrivan and Charlie Brown. Ken Nurse, Jr. was unable to start.
St. Pete driver Wayne Calkins dominated the Figure-8 feature leading from green to checker after starting on the front row. The race ran all the way under green despite several close calls in the “X,” many involving Calkins himself who slipped past the slower traffic in the intersection with expert skill.
Jared Meyer held off Joey Catarelli for second with Bobby Gordon fourth and Cliff Rousseau fifth. Rounding out the finishers were Eric Sherrone, Wayne Whitehead and Preston Davis.
Let defending V-8 Bomber track title holder James Wright III start on the pole and you can just about expect him to take home a win and that’s what happened on Sunday. Wright drew the pole position and led all the way for his second consecutive win on the early season. David Purvis had another strong run but had to settle for the runner-up position just in front of George Gorham, Jr.
and young Brey Holmes who looked great in his V-8 Bomber debut behind the wheel of dad Aaron’s green #57. Fifth went to Brandon Duchscherer trailed by Bubba Healey, Ricky Norman, Josh Todd and Mike Bruno. Wright also won the heat.
Chris Narramore, Sr. tracked down early leaders Tony Davidson and Chuck Frazier then went on to score his second straight win of the year. Heat winner Frazier had a great run but just wasn’t quick enough to hold off Narramore and settled for second on this day. Bruce Cozad came home third followed by Fred Martin, Danny Leet, Davidson, Colt Cecil and Gordon Weaver.
Seth Adams led all the way to claim his second straight Legend Car feature win after finishing second to his teammate Michael Cherry in the heat. That win was Cherry’s first in a Legend Car. Cherry would end up with a nice second place finish in the feature after a good battle with Devin McLeod who wound up third in front of L. J. Grimm, Dave Gleason, Cale Nolen and Dave Fusco.
Dustin Wilson made it two for two in the Scramblers passing William Kerns for the lead on lap three and never looking back as he sped to the win over Kerns, Keith Cantrill and Matt Owen. 2016 track champion Nicole Green and Anthony Carroll were unable to make the call for the feature. Wilson also topped the heat race.
Action got started early in the Mini Cup class as a big wreck off turn two near the start of the heat race saw the body completely torn off the car of Adam Briggs, the feature winner on opening day. The resulting damage eliminated Briggs from competing the rest of the day. Clay Samuels led the first eight laps of the feature but it was 2016 track champ Russell Bush making the pass on lap nine to grab yet another win. Samuels held on for second while Douglas Herrin, Jr. had a nice run for third negated when his car came across the scales too light in tech. Doug Higbie ended up third with Bill Rychel fourth. Bush also was victorious in the wild heat race.
The Daytona Antique Auto Racing Association brought a great field of cars to the track. Luke Hill topped the Midgets over heat winner Bob Jordan, Paul Waters, Boyd Vanderside and Robert Law. Stan Butler and Phil Pete did not start.
The DAARA Sprint car main went to Scott Winter who topped heat winner James Meltner, Merle Strickland and Chris Hahn. The race for Six-Cylinder and small block V-8’s went to the Steve Campbell-owned Ford-6 driven by Duane Lecornu who easily won the heat as well. Richie Gomes took second followed by Frank Blanchard, Shirley Morden and Steve Parrish.
The DAARA big block V-8 feature was a barn-burner as Cush Revette, Jr. in his 1957 Chevy “Cushvertible” battled side by side nearly all the way against the NASCAR Tour-Type Modified of Cory Lane. The pair crossed the finish line in a near dead heat with track officials on the grandstand side calling Revette the winner while DAARA officials watching from pit side called Lane the victor. Either way, it was a great race. Jim Zabele was third over Carl Doughty and Darren Nichols.
Next Sunday, it’s the season-opener for the Sunshine State Challenge Series Sportsman and Pro Trucks. Race time is 2 pm.