Conrad and Allison top Big Night at
SpeedWorld
by Dave Westerman
A near record crowd filled the stands Friday night at Orlando
Speedworld for "Driver Wanna Be A Promoter Night" that
featured extra distance-extra cash races for the Super Late Models
and Mini stocks plus a Friday night appearance by the Legend Cars
and Bandoleros.
Over the past two weeks, drivers had been given tickets to give
away to try and get new fans to come out and see the show. The
promotion worked as the crowd was nearly SRO and almost as big
as the crowds for recent Crash-A-Ramas and the PRI Mopar Sprint
and Midget Classic.
Track General Manager Rusty Marcus was last seen hauling off a
huge box of the freebie ticket stubs and it will now be his job
to go through all the tickets to see which driver brought in the
most fans. That driver will receive a nice cash prize.
Trademark Metal Recyclers steeped up to the pump and put up some
extra cash for a 35 lap Super Late Model race and a good field
was on hand to try and take their money.
Patrick Conrad let everyone know early-on that he would be the
guy to beat.
After struggling with the set-up on his machine in practice during
a blistering-hot afternoon, Conrad made the right choice for qualifying
as he toured the three-eighths mile in 13.627 or just a shade
above a 99 mph average. North Florida driver Kurt Jett was second
quick at 13.708 followed by the 13.723 of Jared Allison.
Conrad jumped out to a quick lead at the drop of the green flag
as things began to get very dicey behind him culminating with
Jett and Allison tangling in turn four on the opening circuit.
David Pollen Jr., Blake Lehr and Ricky Carmichael also got tangled
up trying to get slowed down. Lehr and Pollen, Jr. continued but
Carmichael was forced to go to the pits and his night was over
before it got started.
The second start was much better as Conrad again set sail while
Allison slid into second ahead of Jett and Ronnie Roach. On lap
five, the entire rear body work of David Pollen, Jr.'s car blew
off in turn three after being damaged in the opening lap incident.
Pollen, with no down-force on the car, drove into turn one and
spun out with his dad David Pollen, Sr. sliding off the track
trying avoid his son. Both continued but the younger Pollen's
car would be a handful for the remainder of the race although
he would make it all the way to the checkered flag.
On the restart, Ronnie Roach blasted to the inside and got by
both Allison and Jett after several laps of great side-by-side
racing. Allison got trapped on the high side and lost third spot
to Jett on lap nine. However no one was going to catch Conrad
as he simply drove away to an easy victory in front of a big "cheering
section" that came to watch him run. It was Conrad's fourth
win in five starts this year.
Roach had to be pleased with his runner-up finish. After struggling
considerably so far this year, Roach finally had his machine dialed
in and he coasted to a nice finish ahead of Jett, Allison and
Brock Burns. Lehr, Joe Piazza, Pollen, Sr., Gary Terry
and Gary Bierlein rounded out the top ten with Pollen,
Jr., Russ Shaw and Carmichael the remaining finishers.
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