Bobby Pierce moved to the front early and then drove away from a solid field of drivers to collect the $10,555 top prize during the 8th Annual Slocum 50 at 34 Raceway near Burlington Saturday night, an event held to honor the memory of Brent Slocum who lost his life in a pit area accident at the speedway. The High Five Racing friends and family headed up by Brad Stevens and Jessi Mynatt work closely with promoters Jeff and Amy Laue to put on this event each year and with 2,200 in the grandstands this was the biggest one yet raising over $6,000 for the Slocum Foundation to be used for scholarships for area students.
Thirty-three Late Models signed in with some of the best in the region on hand and it was not an easy task to get qualified for the 24-car feature field. Case in point, Brian Birkhofer finished fifth in the B-Main and used a Slocum Foundation provisional to start the main event. Defending champion Ryan Unzicker and Friday night's winner at Davenport Jimmy Mars started from the front row and it was Unzicker who lead the first two laps before Dave Eckrich slowed at the exit of turn four sending drivers scrambling, including Birkhofer who stood on the binders to keep from making heavy contact.
Pierce lined up fourth on the restart and went to the extreme top of turns three and four to sweep around both Mars and Jesse Stovall to takeover second on lap three. He then quickly reeled in Unzicker taking a look to the inside of the leader a couple of times before again using the cushion in turn four to vault himself into the lead on lap seven. A flat tire for Gordy Gundaker slowed the race on lap eleven and while Unzicker was able to stay close to Pierce for a few laps following the restart it wasn't long before the gap was a full straightaway.
The final caution waved with eight laps remaining when Stovall spun in turn two while running fourth giving Unzicker one more opportunity to try pull off a late race maneuver as he did last year to win here. Pierce would have nothing of it though as he again pulled away while Unizcker had to fight of challengers of his own going three-wide in turn four with Chris Simpson and Brian Shirley coming to the white flag. It would be Pierce in dominating fashion for the victory while Unzicker held on for second. Shirley would edge out Simpson for third and fifth would go to the Hard Charger of the race, Jason Feger who started seventeenth. Mars would finish sixth, Frank Heckenast Jr. was seventh, eighth was Rodney Sanders, Jason Utter was ninth and current MARS point leader Tony Jackson J. filled out the top ten.
Pierce would become the first two-time winner of the event that started out as an IMCA sanctioned Deery Brother Summer Series event before switching to a UMP Late Model event in 2013. Stevens and Mynatt take great pride in the continued growth of the event and they do this through the great support of several sponsors. With near perfect weather on this night leading to a near capacity crowd, they have set the bar quite high, but I have no doubt that they will continue to succeed in their goals.
While the Late Models are the headliners, the support classes also benefit from extra money and added bonuses and there were two other very happy and proud Slocum winners on this night. In the Stock Cars John Oliver Jr. started sixth and picked his way to the front mid-race. From there he had to hold off the challenges of Jeff Mueller to take the win. Mueller came from ninth to finish second with early leader Andrew Hustead in third. Jake Weing finished in the fourth spot and Tom Bowling Jr. rallied from an early incident to finish in fifth.
The 305 Sprint feature had a great late race battle between Dave Getchell, Dustin Clark and Shane Quam with Clark prevailing at the checkers. Quam would finish second followed by Matt Krieger, Getchell and Brandyn Martin. A solid field of twenty sprinters were in attendance.
Even though it was a bit unexpected it was definitely an honor for me to be a part of this event on the microphone for the local classes. I always enjoyed seeing Brent Slocum at the track and I can still see him smiling. He definitely was last night.
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