Rain tried its best to dampen the spirits of everybody\nSaturday at Auburndale Speedway but track owner Rex Guy would stick a dagger in\nMother Nature and the show went on despite a late start in front of a very good\ncrowd… and it would be a long night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Persistent rain, heavy at times, fell at the track off\nand on between 2 and 5 pm as everything was put on hold. Just after 5, the skies began to clear and it\nwas time to dry the track and get to the business of racing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The big event of the night would be a 50-lap point race\nfor the Florida Pro Truck Challenge Series and the pits were crowded as 32\nTruck teams showed up to do battle. \nQualifying was held almost two hours late from its scheduled time with\n31 of the Trucks getting laps in as Jacob Nicoletti’s team was thrashing on his\nmachine after hitting the turn four wall in hot laps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Quick time would again go to Derek Pugh who seems to have\na handle on how to get around Auburndale Speedway all by himself. Pugh’s lap of 14.364 topped the laps turned\nby Cody McDuffie, Jason Lester, Becca Monopoli and Brent Huber. The top 16 in time trials were locked in to\nthe big show with everybody else relegated to a pair of 15-lap B-Main qualifiers\nincluding Huber who had to run one of the B’s after being set down in\npost-qualifying tech. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The top four in each race would move on to the 50 lapper\nthat would start a field of 24.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Huber worked his way through the field to claim the first\nB-Main trailed by Adam Briggs, Shea Montgomery and Dodge Carlbert as those four\nmoved on to the feature. The night ended\nearly for Bryton Horner, Carter Brown, Dave Fewox and Nick White.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Leroy Moore, celebrating his birthday, led all the way to\nclaim B-Main number two with Billy Carlbert second and Jeff White third. Dylan Martin spun on lap three but drove like\ncrazy to grab the final transfer spot. \nMartin was making his first start in his Pro Truck since a near-fatal\nmotorcycle accident several months ago. \nFailing to transfer were Nicoletti (who did a great job considering his\nbig wall hit in practice), Johnny Marra, Mark Kemick and Josh Haranda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The top six qualifiers were inverted for the start of the 50-lap contest placing young Brennon Pletcher on the pole flanked by veteran Truck racer Steve Darvalics who quickly powered his way to the lead at the drop of the green.\u00a0 Caution was out quickly on lap five as Colt Cecil bit out a chunk of the back stretch wall.\u00a0 Cecil pitted and was able to return to action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Darvalics continued to set the pace but McDuffie was on\nthe move taking second from Monopoli on lap eight then blasting his way to the\nlead two laps later. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pugh moved by Pletcher into fourth as McDuffie was already in lapped traffic by the 16th circuit.\u00a0 At that point McDuffie was in a class of his own as he had opened up a full straight lead by the half way mark.\u00a0 The top ten at lap 25 consisted of McDuffie, Darvalics, Monopoli, Pugh, Lester, Mike Kohut, Pletcher, Rich Clouser, Danny Anderson and Richard Griffis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Everything would change big time on lap 26, though, as\nthe trucks running 3rd thru ninth would all end up with damage after an\naltercation off turn two with several lapped trucks. Pugh and Lester pitted as did Kohut who did\nnot return. Other machines with damage\nincluded Clouser, Pletcher, Shea Montgomery and Jeff White. Both Pugh and Lester made it back out for the\nrestart which saw another multi-truck melee on the front stretch that ended the\nnight for Kristen Clements. Also\nreceiving damage were the trucks of Danny Anderson, Adam Briggs and Brent Huber\nalthough all would eventually continue. \nRich Clouser pitted his machine during the caution and did not\nreturn. At this point 19 trucks were\nstill in the running.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
McDuffie continued to lead easily as Monopoli forged here\nwas by Darvalics into second on lap 29 only to see that pass negated when\nMartin spun around in turn two. Jason\nLester pitted to try and fix damage and returned minus his hood and fenders but\nthe right front of the truck had gone askew and he went to the pits a final\ntime and was later DQ’d to the rear of the field for an undetermined issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
McDuffie continued to overwhelm the field as the drivers\nmanaged to get all the way to lap 36 before Jeff White spun in turn two. Three laps later the red flag was out as\nHuber climbed over the left side of Anderson’s truck in turn four, nearly\ngetting on his side. Anderson was out of\nthe event while Huber returned briefly only to drop out soon after. Quite a bit of fluid and debris littered the\nturn four area and it took close to 15 minutes to clean up, adding to the long\nnight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once the green flag came back out, the final 11 laps ran\noff without a hitch other than a late front stretch spin by Billy Carlbert that\nstarter Julian Mullis was not about to throw another caution flag for. McDuffie took the checker well ahead of\nDarvalics who had to hold off a hard-charging Monopoli over the final\nlaps. Pletcher held on for fourth while\nBrey Holmes had the best race of his career, staying out of trouble all the way\nto score a fifth place finish for a team that has been plagued with mostly\nmechanical issues during the past year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pugh held on to finish sixth with Leroy Moore, Griffis,\nBriggs and Shea Montgomery rounding out the top ten. Completing the finishers were Dodge Carlbert,\nMartin, Cecil, Billy Carlbert, Jimmy Frazier III (who had a top ten run end\nlate when he hit the wall), Anderson, Huber, Colt Hensley, Jeff White, Kohut,\nClouser, Clements, Big Donnie Burkhalter and Lester. Burkhalter had a tough weekend, blowing an\nengine in Friday practice then losing his brakes early in the race.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Immediately after the Truck race finished, Dodge Carlbert\nclimbed in his Pure Stock car… then he went out and won the 20-lap feature\nafter starting scratch on the field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wild Child Jammie Dunnahoe, Jr, won the Pure Stock heat\nand had the pole for the feature but broke a transmission coming off turn two\non the opening lap, scattering the field. \nChuck Mathias held the top spot for ten laps but could not hold off\nCarlbert who scored his second victory in a row. Aaron Holmes was back behind the wheel on\nthis night and he made a late pass to claim second over Mathias, James Wright\nIII, Kate Clouser (making her very first start here), Matt McCrary and\nDunnahoe. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jason Bartram got a huge monkey off his back as his new\ncar performed flawlessly for once and he led start to finish to claim the 25-lap\nSportsman feature. Jamie Kennedy charged\nup to run on Bartram’s bumper over the final laps but had to settle for second\nover Charlie Brown, Tom Zimmerman, Alexa Anderson and Steven O’Steen. O’Steen was driving a car that he’ll be\ntaking to Bristol, TN in a few weeks and was doing a “shake down”\nrun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In other action, James Wright III led all the way to\nclaim yet another V-8 Bomber victory trailed by Travis Todd, Bud Bronson,\nRonnie Abney, Brian Harbin, Brandon Love, Jimmy McLeod and Jason Sopczak. Wright also won the heat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wilson Martins, Sr. topped the Mini Cup action over heat\nwinner Maria Martins, Leandro Martins, Bill Rychel and Russell Bush.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Chris Narramore, Jr. topped both the heat and feature in\nthe Mini Stocks outgunning Chuck Frazier, David McCaig, Freddy Martin and Tav\nGary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Guy Kolmel won his first career feature in the Scramblers\nleading Donnie Mosman and Trenton Henick to the checker. Kolmel also was the heat race winner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rain tried its best to dampen the spirits of everybody Saturday at Auburndale Speedway but track owner Rex Guy would stick a dagger in Mother […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":25899,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"publish_to_discourse":"","publish_post_category":"","wpdc_auto_publish_overridden":"","wpdc_topic_tags":"","wpdc_pin_topic":"","wpdc_pin_until":"","discourse_post_id":"","discourse_permalink":"","wpdc_publishing_response":"","wpdc_publishing_error":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,115,61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-auburndale-speedway","category-local","category-racing-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25898"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25898\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25900,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25898\/revisions\/25900"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}