Ohio's Fun Place to Race!!
2024 Race Season |
 | June 4, 2016 |
 A nice field of cars made the tow to Midvale Speedway despite the iffy weather forcast, including 15 Super Cup Stock Car Series machines to compete in the Hilltop General Store 75. Unfortunately, it would be the only feature that would be completed on this night. Heat races for 3 of the 4 other Divisions got in the record books, but because of impending rain moving into the area and the SCSCS teams traveling anywhere between 5 - 8 hours to race, track officials decided to bump their race up to get in the full distance. Fortunately, that is exactly what transpired. It was cloudy and 80 degrees at race time.
A great story unfolded in qualifying for the Hilltop General Store 75. Stephen Cox, who after 2 weeks in a burn unit and 3 months of recovery, climbed back behing the wheel after a firey accident back in February at Circuit of the Americas near Austin TX. Cox would blister the track record with a 14.758 lap in his McGunegill Engines, Boschette Timepieces #33 Chevy.
The SCSCS draws pills for the top 6 qualifiers to determine their starting position, relegating Cox to 6th and putting two time Midvale Speedway SCSCS winner Kevin Kromer on the pole in his #77 with 2015 SCSCS points runner-up Harvey Harrison in the #51 along side. Kromer would scoot out in front after Chief Starter Terry Colletti's green flag with Harrison and the #71 of Trent Gossar in tow. 2014 Series Champion JJ Pack would make slight contact with the #35 of Bill Ashton, bringing out the first of 13 cautions. On the restart, Cox would slide back to the latter half of the top 10 as Pack, Kyle Kromer in the #52 and Brent Nelson in the #80 occupied the top 5. Nelson was spun by the #15 of Brian Harrison on the inital restart, sending them both deep in the field. As a few laps clicked away under green, Cox was able to charge back up to 4th before a caution on lap 9. Caution four would wave after a restart that eliminated the #52 of Kyle Kromer. Harvey Harrison would take over the top spot via the outside lane on lap 12 and the #7 of defending race Champion Larry Berg worked his way up to challenge for the top spot. Action was fierce at the front with Kromer, Harrison, Berg and Cox all arguing over who was going to lead. On lap 14, Cox would show his muscle and lead for the first time at Midvale Speedway and in his SCSCS career. Cox checked out over the 12 lap green flag run until he encountered lapped traffic, that proved tough to handle all night. Whoever was towards the front, had major issues with lapped machines fighting desperately to stay on the lead lap. Kromer and Berg were starting to reel in the leader as the #33 tried high and low to get around the #71 and put him a lap down. Cox was able to finally lap the Gossar machine, but he would wreak havoc with the others. Harvey Harrison, Kevin Kromer and Berg were all caught up in an accident with the #71 machine on lap 22, shaking up the top 5. Cox led with Harrison able to escape the accident in 2nd, but with quite a bit of front end damage, Nelson, Brian Harrison and the #5 of Brandon Harrison. Harvey was able to get a good jump on the restart and lead lap 23, but Cox was able to wrestle the lead back and drive away once again. The damage to Harvey proved to be too much, ending his night on lap 31. From the lap 31 restart to the lap 66 caution, Cox proved to everyone in the stands that his car was the best on the Speedway. His teammate and car owner Berg ran 2nd and looked like it could be a 1-2 finish for Rohrbaugh Racing. That's when the two teammates made contact with one another to bring out that caution on lap 66, sending them both to the tail end of the lead lap. Nelson found himself not with the lucky dog, but the lucky break! Nelson would drive out to a 10-12 car length lead and look to have things wrapped up, that's when it got crazy. Just when you think you have seen it all, you realize that you havent. The caution flew for an accident involving Kevin Kromer and Gossar on lap 73, Kromer would need some evaluation from Smith Ambulance after complaining of dizziness before climbing out of the car. That set up a green-white-checkered finish. Under series rules, at the 1 to go signal before going back to racing, the drivers can choose their lanes. That caused some confusion for the fans and Midvale Speedway Official's in getting the race restarted because the #5 of Brandon Harrison, who was running 5th, would restart 2nd, because Pack, Cox and Berg all chose the inside lane. That confusion would happen more than once on these attempts. On the first attempt, Pack and Cox would get around Nelson in turn one, they would beat and bang off each other off turn two and slide thru the infield into turn 3, collecting the #15 of Brian Harrison, the #2 of Mike Kurkowski and the #5 of Brandon Harrison. Only Brandon was unable to continue. Series officials decided to scrap that attempt at a GWC and allow the machines to be repaired, lineup in their original restart positions and go at it again, minus the #5. On the second attempt, Pack and Berg spun in turn 3 and the #15 of Harrison received another "Lucky Dog" to put him back on the lead lap and in the 7th position. On the 3rd attempt, Cox repayed the favor to his teammate and spun him in turn 2, setting up what would be the 4th and final attempt with sprinkles starting to fall onto the 3/10 mile oval. Nelson was able to fend off Cox and JJ Pack's attempts to get by over the final 2 circuits, putting his Atkinson Welding, Airtek Inc Chevrolet into Downtown Ford Victory Lane. The Petersburg WVA driver who was 3rd in points a season ago, picked up his 3rd career SCSCS win and 4th top 5 at Midvale Speedway. Following Nelson to the line was the fan favorite Cox, Pack, Berg and Brian Harrison rounding out the top 5 finishers.
Thanks again to the SCSCS for making their 6th appearance at Midvale Speedway. Also, thank you to The Hilltop General Store in Tippecanoe for sponsoring the 75 lap slugfest.
Next week June 11th is 99.9 WTUZ / Midvale Karting Series Night at "Thunder In The Valley". Track Official's have decided that we will complete ALL of the events that got cancelled due to rain. Normally, we do not run Heat races when we run double features, but in an attempt to give the fans as much racing as possible, we will indeed run a complete show after wrapping up last week's postponed races.
So, we will qualify for week #6 and we will kick off racing at 6:30 with Canton Auto Salvage Compact Heat races, then run our 4 features that were rained out to finish up week #5 (ONLY the cars and trucks that qualified for last week's races can run in the makeup events). We will then roll right into Heat races for all 5 Regular Divisions, The Midvale Karting Series at intermission, and our normal features. It should be an action packed night FULL OF RACING!!! Pit gates open at 2:30, Grandstands and Hot Laps at 3, Qualifying at 5 and Racing at 6:30!!!
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Super Cup Stock Car Series
Fast Time: Stephen Cox 14.758 (NTR)
Hilltop General Store 75:
Brent Nelson, Stephen Cox, JJ Pack, Larry Berg, Brian Harrison, Jeff Zillweger, Mike Kurkowski, Kevin Kromer, Brandon Harrison, Trent Gossar, Bill Ashton, Jason Schue, Harvey Harrison, Kyle Kromer, Brian Kaltreider.
Written by: Chris Kail |
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