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Vintage Bloomquist style rewards Tennessee
driver with $100,000 at Eldora
Patience Key to 6th
Rich Dirt Late Model Dream by Ferris Commercial Mowers Payday
ROSSBURG (June 8) — As the race leaders pulled away in the Dirt Late
Model Dream XIX presented by Ferris Commercial Mowers, veteran Scott
Bloomquist bided his time.
It was vintage Bloomquist at Eldora Speedway on Saturday night as
the Mooresburg, Tenn., driver, known for his classic late lap charges
through the field, replicated that effort to pocket another
$100,000-to-win, 100-lap victory at the historic .500-mile clay oval.
It was Bloomquist’s sixth Dream victory and first since 2008.
“That about as sweet of a handling car, I could do anything with it. I
could run middle, bottom, high,” said Bloomquist, who started sixth in
the field. “Overall, I was in such control I felt real comfortable the
whole race no matter how close we ran to the wall. They key was to be
able to pull off the wall. I can’t say enough. The car was awesome.”
The field had no answers for Bloomquist, even with a tension-filled
restart with two laps left. Bloomquist rocketed from the pack on that
green-white-checkered restart and put the wild racing for second place
and beyond in his dust. Bloomquist crossed the finish line 1.527
seconds ahead of Dennis Erb Jr. (Carpentersville, Ill.) and Josh
Richards (Shinnston, W.Va.). Those two had waged an impressive duel as
the closing laps ticked off.
“We just used everything we had to get up to the front. We had a good
run,” said Erb, who started 17th and claimed the $20,000 reward for his
runner-up spot. “It’s pretty tough when it’s a long race out there. No
matter where you start it takes a lot out of you.”
As Bloomquist was rolling onto the victory lane stage, Richards — who
charged from his last-place starting spot of 28th — came up 32 pounds
light at the scales. He was disqualified after failing to meet the
2,300-pound weight minimum required by UMP DIRTcar, the sanctioning
body of the event. That moved Brian Birkhofer (Muscatine, Iowa) up to
third. Dale McDowell (Chickamauga, Ga.) and Jimmy Owens (Newport,
Tenn.) rounded out the top five.
“They key was having a good enough car to take off on the restart,”
Bloomquist said. “I was confident enough I could restart and control
the race again. Confidence was high.”
Tyler Reddick, a 17-year old from Corning, Calif., bolted to the lead
from the pole. He led the first 21 laps by forcing the tempo. He caught
the back of field in just six laps, but appeared to push it a little
too hard when he tagged the wall in turn four on a slide job and
damaging his spoiler. He retained the lead until lap 21 when the field
reeled him in.
“I got a little too aggressive and I hit the wall. It was driving
different but it was still pretty good,” said Reddick, who finished
24th.
Jimmy Mars (Menomonie, Wis.) inherited the lead on lap 22 when Reddick
fell off pace rolling out of turns 3-4. Mars paced the field with Tim
Fuller, Duane Chamberlain, Bloomquist and Birkhofer giving chase. Mars
clicked off the lead laps but Bloomquist was quietly making his
traditional charge through the field. He moved into third with 47 laps
complete and second with 54 down.
“The race track right now is a good as it’s ever been. I just did not
want to spend the tires so I let them go,” Bloomquist said. “I knew I
was running a fast enough pace not to get (lapped). That’s definitely
what made it feel like the old days. We used to wait for the last 30
laps and everybody had already burned their stuff up.”
Bloomquist peeked under Mars on lap 59 and several times after. He
finally built enough momentum to get past Mars to lead lap 65. His lead
escalated to seven seconds with 20 laps to go. It remained comfortable
until nine laps remained with a caution. Bloomquist, choosing to go
high on the double-file restarts, ran away and hid from the field until
that final restart.
“You hate to see those cautions at the end like that. But the car felt
so good. The car just took off,” Bloomquist said. “I could run any line
around this race track. We stayed up high and tried to keep the heat
out of the tires and not burn them up too early … then make a charge at
the end.”
The victory at Eldora was Bloomquist’s first since 2008. It was also
his 11th top-five finish in the Dream in a record 17 starts.
“It’s a lot tougher than people think,” Bloomquist said of what had
been a difficult season for him until Saturday night. “We’ve had a lot
of bad luck on a lot of rough race tracks. I told everybody all this
bad luck means we’re just going to come into the Dream and win it. It’s
time to turn this thing around and that’s what we did. It’s tough being
an owner and driver combination. There’s not too many of us left. It’s
expensive to go up and down the road.”
Matt Miller (Whitehouse, Ohio) entered the Dream feature after winning
two of the three preliminary features in the new format that included
Twin 25-lap features on both Thursday and Friday. He gave chase early
and worked his way up to second on lap 87 but pulled off just four laps
later with mechanical trouble.
Eldora Speedway returns to action on June 22 with Ohio Sprint
Speedweek, a three-division show featuring the All Star Circuit of
Champions sprint cars, UMP DIRTcar modifieds and Eldora stock cars.
Tickets and campsites for that event, and others on the busy Eldora
slate, may be purchased online at http://www.eldoraspeedway.com/ at any
time of the day or night; or by calling the speedway office (937)
338-3815 during normal business hours.
Dirt Late Model
Dream XIX by Ferris Commerical Mowers Finish (Finish/Start/Driver/Laps
Completed/Money Won):
1. (6) Scott Bloomquist100 $100,000
2. (17) Dennis Erb Jr./100 $20,000
3. (10) Brian Birkhofer/100 $10,000
4. (11) Dale McDowell/100 $6,000
5. (21) Jimmy Owens/100 $5,000
6. (3) Jimmy Mars/100 $4,000
7. (7) Chris Madden/100 $3,500
8. (15) Steve Francis/100 $3,000
9. (2) Tim Fuller/100 $2,500
10. (23) Terry Phillips/99 $2,475
11. (22) Tim McCreadie/99 $2,450
12. (4) Eddie Carrier Jr./99 $2,425
13. (27) Jon Henry/98 $2,400
14. (5) Duane Chamberlain/96 $2,375
15. (14) Matt Miller/91 $2,350
16. (9) Wayne Chinn78 $2,325
17. (8) Jared Landers/69 $2,300
18. (20) Shane Clanton/66 $2,275
19. (24) Shannon Babb/66 $2,250
20. (16) Mason Zeigler/35 $2,200
21. (26) John Blankenship/31 $2,175
22. (25) Chris Simpson/30 $2,150
23. (18) Steve Casebolt Jr./26 $2,125
24. (1) Tyler Reddick/22 $2,100
25. (12) Gregg Satterlee/17 $2,075
26. (13) Devin Moran/17 $2,050
27. (19) Jonathan Davenport/17 $2,025
28. (28) Josh Richards-DQ (light)
Heat 1 Finish (15 laps – Top 3 Transfer to A-Main/4-6 to B-Main/7-10 to
C-Main): 1. Scott Bloomquist, 2. Chris Madden, 3. Devin Moran, 4.
Shannon Thornsberry, 5. Terry Phillips, 6. Jason Montgomery, 7. Brian
Shirley, 8. Dustin Neat, 9. Dusty Moore, 10. Jonathan Davenport, 11.
Jeff Provinzino, 12. Jerry Bowersock (DNS) Eric Wells, Jason Smith
Heat 2 Finish (15 laps – Top 3 Transfer to A-Main/4-6 to B-Main/7-10 to
C-Main): 1. Duane Chamberlain, 2. Jared Landers, 3. Matt Miller, 4.
Jimmy Owens, 5. Shannon Babb, 6. Shane Clanton, 7. Jeep VanWormer, 8.
Steve Shaver, 9. Bub McCool, 10. Andrew Reaume, 11. Bobby Pierce, 12.
Ross Nicastri, 13. Jeremy Payne, 14. Tim Rivers
Heat 3 Finish (15 laps – Top 3 Transfer to A-Main/4-6 to B-Main/7-10 to
C-Main): 1. Eddie Carrier Jr., 2. Wayne Chinn, 3. Steve Francis, 4. Jon
Henry, 5. Mike Spatola, 6. Billy Moyer Jr., 7. Doug Drown, 8. Danny
Mitchell, 9. Scott James, 10. Tyler Erb, 11. Jeff Babcock (DNS) Earl
Pearson Jr., Kent Robinson, James Rice
Heat 4 Finish (15 laps – Top 3 Transfer to A-Main/4-6 to B-Main/7-10 to
C-Main): 1. Jimmy Mars, 2. Brian Birkhofer, 3. Mason Zeigler, 4. Austin
Hubbard, 5. Josh Richards, 6. Tim Lance, 7. Jay Johnson, 8. Ernie
Cordier, 9. Brandon Sheppard, 10. Justin Coulter, 11. Darrell Lanigan,
12. Frankie Heckenast (DNS) Chad Stapleton, Craig Smith
Heat 5 Finish (15 laps – Top 3 Transfer to A-Main/4-6 to B-Main/7-10 to
C-Main): 1. Tim Fuller, 2. Dale McDowell, 3. Dennis Erb Jr., 4. Tim
McCreadie, 5. Chris Simpson, 6. Michael Asberry, 7. Brad Neat, 8.
Justin Chance, 9. Ryan Sutter, 10. Don Gordon, 11. Randy Weaver, 12.
Morgan Bagley, 13. Don O’Neal, 14. Jacob Hawkins
Heat 6 Finish (15 laps – Top 3 Transfer to A-Main/4-6 to B-Main/7-10 to
C-Main): 1. Tyler Reddick, 2. Gregg Satterlee, 3. Steve Casebolt Jr.,
4. John Blankenship, 5. Billy Moyer, 6. Donnie Moran, 7. Chad Simpson,
8. Chad Smith, 9. R.J. Conley, 10. Nick Latham, 11. John Mason, 12.
Brandon Thirlby, 13. Greg Johnson, 14. Shane Unger
C-Main Finish (15 laps – Top 6 Transfer to B-Main): 1. Brian Shirley,
2. Bub McCool, 3. Andrew Reaume, 4. Jay Johnson, 5. Scott James, 6.
Brad Neat, 7. Doug Drown, 8. R.J. Conley, 9. Brandon Sheppard, 10.
Justin Chance, 11. Ross Nicostri, 12. Don Gordon, 13. Nick Latham, 14.
Ryan Sutter, 15. Danny Mitchell, 16. Ernie Cordier
C-Main Scramble Finish (5 laps): 1. R.J. Conley, 2. Brandon Sheppard,
3. Justin Chance, 4. Ross Nicostri, 5. Don Gordon, 6. Doug Drown
B-Main Finish (20 laps – Top 6 Transfer to A-Main): 1. Jimmy Owens, 2.
Tim McCreadie, 3. Terry Phillips, 4. Shannon Babb, 5. Chris Simpson, 6.
John Blankenship, 7. Billy Moyer Jr., 8. Donnie Moran, 9. Brian
Shirley, 10. Mike Spatola, 11. Jason Montgomery, 12. Andrew Reaume, 13.
R.J. Conley, 14. Michael Asberry, 15. Tim Lance, 16. Jay Johnson, 17.
Austin Hubbard, 18. Scott James, 19. Josh Richards, 20. Bub McCool, 21.
Billy Moyer, 22. Jeep VanWormer, 23. Brad Neat, 24. Jon Henry
B-Main Scramble Finish (5 laps): 1. Donnie Moran, 2. Brian Shirley, 3.
Billy Moyer Jr., 4. Mike Spatola, 5. Jason Montgomery, 6. R.J. Conley,
7. Tim Lance, 8. Michael Asberry, 9. Jay Johnson, 10. Andrew Reaume
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