O'Brien Flag To Flag For SLMR Win At Stuart

With Joe Kosiski bringing his Malvern Bank Super Late Model Series in our direction for the second time this season we were lured to the Stuart International Speedway for a Wednesday night of Late Model racing backed up by what is becoming a very solid program for the weekly IMCA classes as well.

Twenty-eight Late Models jammed into the pit area with a nice mix of drivers from Nebraska and Iowa along with veteran driver Andy Claiborne making the long pull up from Fort Scott, Kansas. Four heat races were run with passing points used to not only advance the top fourteen drivers into the main event, but to set the feature lineup as well allowing the pole-sitter to "earn" his way up front rather than to pull it from a pill draw as we saw a night before.

Jason O'Brien from just down the road in Atlantic would earn the pole with Corey Zeitner to the outside and they would bring the field of twenty to the green for the twenty-five lap headliner. O'Brien would take the point and the third starting Bill Leighton Jr. would drop Zeitner back to third as the leaders quickly separated themselves from the rest of the pack on the smooth slick surface.

Jason O'Brien - Barry Johnson photo

Leighton was searching for a line that would allow him to close in on the leader with no success until O'Brien closed in on the back of the pack with ten laps remaining. Just like that the gap between the two disappeared as O'Brien showed his patience with the traffic despite the fact that Leighton was able to get alongside of him on a couple of occasions.


The move of the night came on lap eighteen though when O'Brien split the lapped cars of Brad Perdue and Paul Conrad and even though Leighton was able to do the same a lap later, Jason had once again put at least ten car lengths between himself and his challenger. With no mistakes over the closing laps this one was scored complete with O'Brien capturing his first win on the series in 2019. Leighton was solid runner-up as Zeitner followed them in for third. Charlie McKenna had a good showing in his first SLMR start in 2019 with a fourth place run and Ben Schaller took fifth. Andrew Kosiski advanced three positions for sixth, current point leader Nick Deal faded from fourth to seventh over the closing laps with his nearest challenger in the point standings Kyle Berck one spot behind him in eighth. Modified driver Nick Roberts was impressive in McKenna's backup car posting a ninth place finish and one of the B-Main winners Jason Hahne completed the top ten.

The IMCA Stock Cars started off the feature events with a thriller as Buck Schafroth passed Brandon Pruitt on the outside coming out of turn four to take the win by inches. Pruitt had taken the lead from Cody Gustoff on lap three and appeared to have the favored line locked in as Schafroth stayed glued to his bumper running around the bottom. With five laps to go though Shawn Ritter was making up ground on the high line in third and when Schafroth got a peak of Ritter's nose up top he made the decision to move up the track as well. First he went to the middle with four laps remaining and when that didn't work he went all the way to the top with two to go making the pass right at the checkers. Pruitt was second and Ritter was right there in third as well making for a thrilling conclusion to this twenty-lap race. Josh Daniels came from sixteenth to finish fourth and Gustoff took fifth.
Bran

Brandon Pruitt down low, Buck Schafroth in the middle and Shawn Ritter up top - Barry Johnson photo

Schafroth has now won all three nights that I have been at Stuart this year. Does this now make me an honorary member of the VanEatonville Mafia?

Garrett Nelson in victory lane with flagman Jamie Schirm - Barry Johnson photo

After a couple of early cautions the eighteen lap Sport Mod feature hit its groove and gave the large crowd another good race with Garrett Nelson taking the lead on lap three after Kyle Tanner and Jerry Hinton had the honors on laps one and two. Kody Havens had quickly moved from eleventh to second and had his sights set on the leader, but Nelson found a unique line that worked for him and maintained at least a five car length advantage over Havens.

When Mark Menard spun in turn two with four laps remaining that would put previous feature winners Havens and Tyler Inman side-by-side behind Nelson for the restart, but when those two made contact on the first lap back to green that allowed Nelson to get away once again and he finished off the race in style for the win. Havens would pick up the second spot as Hunter Longnecker came from tenth to third. Dusty Masolini finished fourth and Inman filled out the top five.

The Modified feature got off to a rough start when the second place car of Cory Sauerman got sideways in turn four on the opening lap and the rest of the field scrambled and piled up looking to avoid him. Sauerman was able to make the save so he would realign on the front row outside, but Scott Bash and Kyle Brown would have to start at the rear after making quick repairs while Arizona driver Austin Kuehl and the youngster from Nevada Kollin Hibdon were both eliminated.

Matt Meinecke - Barry Johnson photo

Pole-sitter Matt Meinecke would race out to the lead while Josh Gilman quickly moved to second after restarting from fifth. Much like the Sport Mod feature it looked like the challenger would soon overtake the leader, but that was not the case as Meinecke increased his lead over Gilman. A caution for debris on lap eighteen brought Gilman and the rest of the field back to the leader, but Meinecke proved that this was his night to shine as he again drove away over the final two laps to take the win. Gilman warded off Kyle Brown by half a car length to take the second spot, Kansas visitor Clay Money was fourth and Sauerman was fifth at the checkers.

The Late Model feature wrapped up at a respectable time of 9:45 and with almost a three hour drive ahead of me I chose to hit the road instead of catching the Hobby Stock feature where, no surprise, Shannon Anderson came from ninth to take the win. John Watson, Brandon Cox, Nick Foster and Michah Hidelbaugh made up the top five.

My point of reference is from nearly twenty years ago, so I will have to ask my friend the Fast Track Fan Craig Allender to verify but it sure seems like the new owner/promoter Mike VanGenderen has breathed new life into this historic track. As I mentioned above, this was already my third trip to Stuart in 2019 and I doubt that it will be my last.

No racing for me this weekend as we have some other plans for Friday and Saturday and then on Sunday I will say "thank you" to my beautiful wife Christine for putting up with me for the past thirty years. Next week I will keep a promise to myself (Danny knows what I am talking about) and I will be back in my usual seat at Oskaloosa on Wednesday, then on Thursday I am hoping that we can finally get our season opener in for the Sprint Invaders at the Wapello County Fair in Eldon.

Enjoy your racing weekend!