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Mike Leone
FRANKLIN, Penn. (July 19) - After the last three events were either rained out or postponed, Mother Nature finally gave the FASTRAK Northeast Touring Series a break on Sunday night at Tri-City Speedway allowing race #7 of 17 on the 2009 slate to be completed. Scattered showers stayed south of the speedway, which is under the first year of ownership by Rick Hetrick and Roy Hill. The first of two appearances at Tri-City drew an excellent field of 34 drivers from Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, and West Virginia.
After a slow start to the 2009 season, Bobby Powell has caught fire. Powell won his first FASTRAK Northeast Late Model Touring Series feature on June 27 and made it number two on Sunday night after a spirited duel with Max Blair throughout the non-stop 25-lap feature that was timed in 9:04.417 minutes. Powell has now won three of the last four features and five for his career in FASTRAK-sanctioned events at Tri-City.
"Max (Blair) and I are really good friends," explained the Waterford, Pa. driver after the $1,200 victory. "We park together, race together- it's a lot of fun. I talked with Max before the race and we agreed to finish one-two and not wreck each other. I'm sure he's happy, maybe not as happy as I am. I have to thank everyone from FASTRAK. They work as hard as we do so we can all do this…Vicki Emig, Mike Leone, and Brad Hibbard. I also want to thank Rich (Hetrick) and Roy (Hill) from Tri-City."
Defending champion and current point leader, Max Blair, drew the pole position, but it was Powell taking the advantage at the start from the outside. It was three-wide for second on lap three with Josh Double, Bud Watson, and Bryan Salisbury coming across the line in that order.
While it was three-wide for third, fourth, and fifth, up front Blair pulled even with Powell on lap three and the two ran side-by-side for the next three laps with Powell holding on. Salisbury, who started seventh, worked his way past Double for third on lap five. Ninth and 10th starting Mike Pegher, Jr. David Scott followed Salisbury past Double for positions four and five on laps six and seven respectively.
The battle continued up front as Powell decided to move to the bottom to block Blair's advances all while the lead duo pulled away from the field. Laps 12, 13, and 14 once again saw Blair try to make the pass as the two ran side-by-side and each time Powell continued to have the advantage at the start-finish line.
Meanwhile, Scott continued his charge to the front knocking off Pegher for fourth on lap 12 and two laps later disposed of Salisbury for third. Scott had a huge deficit to make up on Powell and Blair. Scott slowed chewed at the lead, while Blair tried every move possible to get around Powell. Powell did a great job in lapped traffic and survived a minor scare on the last lap in turns three and four with three lapped cars directly in front of him to take the checkered flag by just 0.63 seconds. It was the second straight Northeast Touring Series event that went non-stop at Tri-City as last year's 30 lapper on Labor Day Weekend won by Carl McKinney did the same.
Powell's triumph in the Scott Bidwell-owned, Fame RV Center/Jay's Auto Wrecking/Maloney Tool & Mold-sponsored #B1D was the fourth of his career in Northeast Touring Series competition moving him into a three-way tie for the all-time lead with Blair and Dick Barton.
Blair's runner-up kept him atop both the $10,000 National Weekly Series Championship and the $5,000 Northeast Touring Series point race. Scott was third. Pegher, who won the weekly-sanctioned event Saturday night at Mercer, passed Salisbury on lap 20 to finish fourth. Salisbury dropped to fifth. Completing the top 10 were Butch Lambert, McKinney, raw rookies Joe Martin and 16-year-old Double, and Tommy Schirnhofer, Jr.
Scoring heat race wins were Pegher, Powell, Scott, and Double, while Shane Bambarger and Dan Karalagas copped the two B mains.
FASTRAK Northeast Late Model Touring Series Race #7 (25 laps $1,200 to-win): 1. BOBBY POWELL (Bidwell B1D) 2. Max Blair (111) 3. David Scott (Powell 100) 4. Mike Pegher, Jr. (Geisler 1c) 5. Bryan Salisbury (26) 6. Butch Lambert (27) 7. Carl McKinney (6M) 8. Joe Martin (55) 9. Josh Double (38) 10. Tommy Schirnhofer, Jr. (8s) 11. Dan Angelicchio (14) 12. Jim Frank (14*) 13. Dan Karalagas (1) 14. John Watson (Horton 48) 15. Bud Watson (2) 16. Josh Holtgraver (00) 17. Dereck Frank (16*) 18. Shane Bambarger (68B) 19. Jim Long (71) 20. Garrett Mott (43X) 21. Jamie Brown (135) 22. Kyle Zimmerman (z17) 23. Jon Law (14) 24. Bryan Force (69)
DNQ: Steve Hollabaugh (3H), Les Lyon (45), Gary Knollinger (38K), Jason Fosnaught (J19), Tyler Dietz (D10), Bob Kish (5), Shawn Schaltenbrand (26), Tom Copeland (98), Andrew Wylie (84), Chris Force (68).
Lap leaders: Powell (1-25)
Heat winners: Mike Pegher, Jr. Bobby Powell, David Scott, Josh Double
B main winners: Shane Bambarger, Dan Karalagas
Car count: 34
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