Ritchie wins first ever OSCAAR feature at Peterborough
For immediate release Source: OSCAAR The winds of change were blowing on a hot and humid night in Peterborough County and at the end of a 50 lap feature it was Lloyd Ritchie who stood in victory lane for the first time in his OSCAAR career. Lloyd has been a runner-up several times in his career, including a second place finish at Kawartha on June 3rd of this season, but was never able to claim the top spot until Saturday evening. Ritchie’s success started with first and fourth place finishes in his heat races, leading him to pull the pole position in the invert draw. |
It was only two laps in to the main event that caution flew when Chris Burrows suffered engine failure for the second time in as many races and Shane Gowan was stopped in the infield grass off the front-straightaway after minor contact in turn 4. The race had to be red flagged as oil had been spread the length of the race track by Burrows. Peterborough Speedway regular Tim Fernandes pulled his #77x behind the wall, ending his night as well. Said Burrows, “It blew up again. It’s an expensive motor. I don’t even know what to say. It was running good. I don’t know, I’ll see what I can do.” The ensuing restart saw Ritchie leading once again followed by Ian Bourque’s #83. The primary battle was for the positions fourth through sixth. Brandon Vanderwel moved to the outside of Wayne Isaacs to make a pass, as did Dave Taylor. Two laps later Taylor continued to move up and was in the fourth position past Vanderwel. Lap six saw the second caution of the evening where Kyle Passer hit the wall exiting turn four causing a flat right-front tire and ending his night for handling reasons. On the ensuing restart Dave Taylor moved up one more spot to third past Flamboro Speedway regular Shawn Chenoweth in the #89x with another impressive power move on the top side of the race track, but all was for not as caution flew again. This time it was the result of another blown motor, this of Mark Hiller’s #58 machine, causing oil to be laid in turns one and two, and subsequently more speedy-dry. When racing resumed Taylor once again made a pass for the second position by Bourque and John Owen and Glenn Watson followed suit one lap later, forcing Bourque back to fifth. Glenn Watson was up to third by lap 10, passing John Owen, after starting in the twelfth position. Watson missed his first heat race due to problems with the oil pump, qualifying him outside the requirements for the invert draw. Racing became tight in the ensuing laps and it appeared Dave Taylor had the fastest car on the race track. Taylor made Ritchie aware of the fact, nudging him several times in turns two and four over the course of a five lap period. The leaders put Frank Tulipano down one lap on lap nineteen and the same to Tyler Hawn on lap 22. While Taylor appeared to have the quicker car in the corners, Ritchie was pulling away on the straightaways, creating a game of cat-and-mouse between the two. On lap 28, Taylor became loose on the entry to turn three and slid high in to the corner. Glenn Watson moved low to try and pass, but Taylor seemingly did not see Watson and moved to the bottom side causing contact and minor damage to the nose of both cars. Lap 29 saw Shane Gowan and Rudy Oppersma fall one lap off the pace. Oppersma was making his first start of the season and finished the night with a top-ten finish. “Well it’s nice because this is a new chassis and new car. We tried out a complete different setup. We’re happy to finish a race and bring it home in one piece. Only a few dents. If you get away with only a few dents, you’re a happy man,” explained Oppersma. The two lapped cars allowed Ritchie to pull away from the Taylor and Watson pairing as they worked their way around the two as well. It was then on lap 31 that disaster struck. Gary Passer was trying to work his way around the lapped car of Frank Tulipano. Sensing the pressure from Ritchie to go a lap down himself, Passer became impatient and under-braked, sending the #81 sideways through turn 1. Passer avoided further contact with the #81 as did Lloyd Ritchie who was first on to the scene. However, a race for position between Dave Taylor and Glenn Watson did not allow time to react to the car covering the width of the track. Taylor ploughed through the front end of the #81, leaving the front-end of both cars destroyed. Glenn Watson managed to jam his brakes to avoid the accident and Ian Bourque spun to avoid on the top side of the track. Taylor was not able to be reached for comment following the race, but Brandon Vanderwel did comment. Said Vanderwel, “I wasn’t anywhere near the spin. My crew said there was caution on the track and it was all said and done by the time I got there. I just know it was a mess.” Jeff Dunford had another theory on the accident. “There’s just guys racing for positions on a small track and they’re racing hard. The biggest (problem) is they don’t let the tires get warm enough and they go sliding all over. It’s just short track racing.” Wayne Isaacs, Ian Bourque and Shane Gowan all took the opportunity to make adjustments on pit lane as the accident was cleared. Passer was black flagged for instigating the incident, ending his night. The ensuing restart saw Glenn Watson to the high-side of Lloyd Ritchie, but Watson was not able to complete the pass. Shortly after it was observed that a support arm of Watson’s rear-wing had come loose and was flailing out the right side of his #22 machine. Watson was black flagged in an attempt to bring him down pit road to have it fixed. However, Watson was running in a tight group at the front with Ritchie running first, himself second, and John Owen in third. The caution flew on lap 39 as a safety precaution. Watson fixed the problem, but was scored two laps down for not obeying the black flag. Lloyd Ritchie jumped out to a five car-length lead over John Owen on the restart with just 11 laps to go. Jeff Dunford quietly made his way up to the top three after a thirteenth starting position and re-starting at the back several times following changes made to the car on pit road. “It feels really good. We’ve worked really hard through the season and we’ve had some good finishes. We’ve always had stupid things breaking, but we stuck in there tonight and the car got better as we went (through the race). We went back to 13th, made it up to third, I like it,” said Dunford. With 46 laps complete Shawn Chenoweth spun alone exiting turn four, setting up a four lap dash to the finish, with Ritchie still holding the top spot. Ritchie made no mistake on the restart, pulling away from Owen. Owen was able to maintain his second spot ahead of Dunford. Ian Bourque remained fourth, but lap 47 saw Brandon Vanderwel jump up in to the top-five past Todd Campbell. Vanderwel ran a brand new body on his car for the race. Explained Vanderwel, “I was working in Toronto this week and the guys decided to surprise me when I came home to pack up on Thursday. They had a brand new body on the car. It’s about time. Our corporate colours are not red. We we’re going to go black or white, we decided to go white with our corporate colours for Shoreline Stone. It’s all decaled-up finally, and another top-five. I want to be in the top-five the rest of the year.” The final three laps ran clean, allowing for a top three of Ritchie, Owen, and Dunford. John Owen had easily his best finish in recent years as he finished second. “(I’m) very happy. The crew worked very hard. We switched around to a new style setup (in practice) and we ended up switching it back to the way it was,” explained Owen. “The car hooked up nice, drove nice, steered nice. I’m very happy. I got pictures with my daughter, not much more I can ask for.” While several drivers had good nights, it was Lloyd Ritchie that was the happiest driver in the pits. “A relief. It’s been a long time. I didn’t like those cautions coming out (near the end) because I thought it was better with more green flag laps. Relief, that’s all I can say.” Ritchie also explained that the accident he avoided on lap 31 was a lot closer than it may have seemed. “Yeah there were a couple of them that I just missed. I couldn’t quite hear Cole on the radio. That one there was especially tight. I was thinking ‘jeez oh no, now what?’ but I was always thinking something (could go wrong).” Ritchie led start to finish for his first OSCAAR feature win and stated post-race that track position was the key to winning. “I think that was key (track position). Some guys just had some bad luck tonight. Some blown motors and stay-dry on the track and the track was a little slippery or so. I think that was the key, track position. I didn’t think there was a second groove because of some of the engines blowing up. I’m happy though, I’m happy.” OSCAAR resumes action in three weeks’ time on Sunday September 25 as part of Sunset Speedway’s Velocity 250 season ending event. It is the third and final stop at Sunset for OSCAAR this season. Stay tuned to www.OSCAAR.ca for upcoming news and events. Agates – Peterborough September 3, 2011 1. #62 Lloyd Ritchie; 2. #2 John Owen; 3. #7T Jeff Dunford; 4. #83 Ian Bourque; 5. #97 Brandon Vanderwel; 6. #07 Todd Campbell; 7. #39 Shane Gowan; 8. #04 Rudy Oppersma; 9. #89x Shawn Chenoweth; 10. #00 Wayne Isaacs; 11. #42 Tyler Hawn; 12. #22 Glenn Watson; 13. #51 Dave Taylor (DNF); 14. #81 Frank Tulipano (DNF); 15. #58 Mark Hiller (DNF); 16. #14 Kyle Passer (DNF); 17. #77x Tim Fernandes (DNF); 18. #64b Chris Burrows; 19. #13 Gary Passer (DQ); 20. #77 Craig Stevenson (DNS). |
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