Auburn, MI – Dustin “Double D” Daggett (Portland, MI) wins the first night of the Great Lakes Super Sprints Triple Header Weekend at Tri-City Motor Speedway in Auburn, MI .
Friday, May 25th was a beautiful, clear and sunny day in Central Michigan, but the 90 degree temperatures and afternoon winds challenged the TCMS grounds crew as well as the 23 sprint car teams that traveled North to race this weekend.
With qualifying groups determined by the drivers pill draw, our first group of 3 hit the track around 6:45. We had some new faces at the top of the Fast Qualifier list with Andrew “Drew” Scheid (Sparta, MI) putting down a 12.348 lap at 103.2 mph sitting on top and Andy Chehowski (Coldwater, MI) sitting at 2nd with a 12.55 second lap. Dagget, Chase “Kid Rocket” Ridenour (Perry, MI) and Brett “Hoosier Rocket” Mann (Goshen, IN) rounded out the top 5 qualifiers.
Last year, under better track conditions, Jared Horstman (Cloverdale, OH) set a track record at TCMS with a 10.934 second lap at a blistering 116.55 miles per hour.
Immediately following the Invocation and National Anthem, the Kistler Engines heat race #1 was led out by DJ Lamance (Delton, MI) and Jared Lamberson (Parma, MI) on the front row. As the field went green and the cars jockey for position going into turn one Lamberson came out of turn 2 in the lead and Ridenour was able to get under Lamance for 2nd. In the 3rd lap, Ridenour was able to get by Lamberson for the lead. In lap 6, Scheid was able to get around Lamberson for 2nd, only to spin in turn 3 allowing Joe “Dirt” Geibe (Sturgis, MI) to get around him and take second at the finish line with Lamberson following for 3rd. With Ridenour securing the Kistler Engines heat win, Geibe, Lamberson, Chris Pobanz (Sebewang, MI) and Ralph “Tank” Brakenberry (Pigeon, MI) rounding out the top 5.
Tony Bures (Bristol, IN) and Kyle Poortenga (Woodland, MI) led the Campbell Performance heat race #2 out on the track. As the field passed the flag stand at lap one, it was Bures, Mann and Poortenga. Unfortunately Bures met the same fate in turn 3 as fast qualifier Scheid had in heat 1. With a single file restart, Mann led the field around for the start and never looked back, grabbing the Campbell Performance heat win, with Poortenga, Chehowski, Danny Sams (Northport, FL) and Cody Howard (Millington, MI) rounding out the top 5.
The stacked Kistler Racing Products heat #3 was led out by Brad Lamberson (Parma, MI) and Phil Gressman (Helena, OH). With Lamberson called for a jump at I-96 the last race, tension was high on a clean start with Gregg Dalman (Bellevue, MI), Daggett and Linden Jones (Edwardsburg, MI) pushing from behind. We got a clean start, and as the cars were coming out of 2, the #66 car of Kyle “Pretty Boy” Stepke (Brooklyn, MI) did a 180 and brought out the caution. Déjà vu struck again with a clean start and Stepke doing a 180 in turn 2. With Stepke*now out, the 3rd time was the charm with a text book start with Lamberson holding off the field and taking the Kistler Racing Products heat 3 with Gressman, Daggett, Dalman and Jones rounding out the top 5.
(*Kyle “Pretty Boy” Stepke, who saw the light and made a move to dirt sprints this year, found the problem with their car in the pits. The torsion tube was bound up, causing the car to spin when he got on the throttle. The snout of the rear end was off 40,000ths of an inch, binding the rear end up. Making some field re-alignments the Stepke crew was able to make the call for the feature where he made it 16 laps before his front right brake rotor broke apart ending his night!)
Ridenour, Mann, Lamberson, Geibe, Poortenga and Gressman, the top 2 finishers from the heats, met up on the front stretch in front of a packed house to have 6 young fans draw and determine their starting positions. After the draw, it would be the Hoosier Rocket (Brett Mann) and Poortenga on the front row, followed by Geibe, Lamberson, Gressman and Ridenour.
With the field set, Mann brought the field of 22 cars out on the track and led them around in the ever popular 4-wide salute to the fans! To a standing ovation and fans lining the fence the stage was set for a great feature run!
The cars got back in their starting formation and Mann and Poortenga brought the cars around to the chalk line for a clean start. Mann was able to get some distance and hold on to first till a caution came out in lap for Tyler Bearden (Onsted, MI) encountered an infield tire and ended up parked in the bottom of turn 2.
With a single file restart, Ridenour and Daggett were able to get around Mann, giving Ridenour the lead as they passed the flag stand. Meanwhile behind the action up front, Scheid had already worked his way up 9 spots to 10th and Dalman had worked his way up to 5th from the 12th starting postion.
In lap 16, Daggett was able to make a move underneath Ridenour for the lead, moving Ridenour to 2nd and Dalman, Mann and Scheid rounding out the top 5. In lap 21, Dalman was able to get around Ridenour for good and Scheid was able to get around Mann for the 4th spot in the 24th lap. Daggett took the checkered flag with a charging Dalman on his tale followed closely by Ridenour, Scheid and Mann.
The Engler Machine and Tool Hard Charger award went to our fast qualifier “Drew” Scheid! Moving up 15 positions to secure a 4th place finish, the best finish so far with GLSS. Honorable mentions go out to Dalman who moved up 10 spots to secure 2nd, Daggett who started 9th and win the feature and Michael Summers (Warsaw, IN) who started 23rd and finished up in 15th.
For a complete rundown of finishes and points, go to our website at www.greatlakessupersprints.com or you can also follow us on race day and get all the electronic scoring on “Race Monitor” you can find in your app store.
Our next race is Saturday, May 26th at Merritt Speedway where racing starts at 7 pm. Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter! Thank you to our sponsors, Specialty Fuels & Logistics, Engler Machine & Tool, Kistler Engines, Campbell Performance and Kistler Racing Products.
- Barry Marlow on May 26, 2018
- Article Date: 5/25/2018 by Barry M. Marlow