AFTON – The 10th edition of the ‘Working Man’s Race’, the Short Track Super Nationals, got off to an exciting start on Friday night at the Afton Motorsports Park in front of a jammed packed facility.
The featured race of the night was the 35 lap Short Track Super Series Sportsman powered by VP Racing Fuels, was a barn burner right to the end. Claude Hutchings, Jr. took advantage of leader Jimmy Wells getting tangled up with a lap car on the final lap to regain the lead. He lost his original lead to Wells two laps earlier. Hutchings, Jr. held off Nick Nye, the second place finisher to claim the $1,500 win. Wells limped across the line in third with Nick Mady and Bill Deckleman completing the top five.
With his tenth place finish in the Sportsman feature Corey Cormier won the Sportsman Short Track Super Series championship powered by VP Racing Fuels.
Brian White won the American Racer Cup Sportsman Champions Match Races to claim the top prize of $1,000.
The Modifieds were on hand, running timed hot laps for an opportunity to run in the Top 10 Dash with the winner going directly into the feature re-draw on Saturday night. Alan Barker won this race as he was the fastest car all night long.
The Street Stocks also ran timed hot laps with the overall fast time of the night getting $200 cash from Wheeler’s Excavating of Deposit, NY. Jerry Lobdell, Jr. set quick time to claim the money.
The CRSA Sprints ran a 30 lap feature and their results can be found on their website www.crsa.myracepass.com. Their feature was dominated by Bobby Hackel IV, who led all laps to claim the $1,000 top prize.
The Front Wheel Drive Four Cylinder Stocks feature was crushed by Phil Burns, who’s lead lasted the entire race to claim $250 in the win.
Nick Nye and Claude Hutchings, Jr. brought the 28 car Sportsman field to green to kick off the Short Track Super Nationals 10 weekend. Nye moved into the lead over Hutchings, Jimmy Wells, Tyler Hart and Nick Mady. With a very talented field aseembled for this marquee event the racing action was hot and heavy with passing taking place all over the race track.
Hutchings was able to get the lead on a lap eight restart and immediately opened up a big lead as Wells got under Nye for second on lap nine before another caution on lap 11 closed up the field.
Hutchings once again opened up a big lead on the lap 12 restart with Wells, Mady, Nye, and 13th place starter Kenny Hammond completing the top five, Nye was able to take third back from Mady one lap later.
On a lap 15 double file restart Nye was able to move past Wells into second as leader Hutchings opened up another big lead.
Bill Deckleman was starting to make some noise coming from his 14th place starting spot as he entered fifth on lap 15.
With the remainder of the feature going caution free lap traffic would be a deciding factor in the outcome of the race.
Hutchings who once held a commanding lead entered heavy lap traffic on lap 27 and this slowed him down and allowed Nye and Wells to close right in. Wells was able to get around Nye for second on lap 28 and with the lap car of Craig Pope holding up Hutchings, Wells closed right in on the back bumper of Hutchings for the lead.
The fast pace of leader Hutchings was slowed to nearly a crawl due to the lap traffic and Wells took full adavantage of this by slipping under Hutchings in turn four to grab the lead as the lap counter clicked to lap 33.
Wells took off and tried to run the final two laps without incident with any lap cars to claim the win. He ran lap 33 clean but soon after taking the white flag disaster struck the Accord Speedway weekly racer.
Wells who was hugging the bottom groove tried to go under the lap car of AJ Digsby going into turn one. Digsby who was racing in the proper groove for lap cars didn’t give an inch to Wells and heavy contact between the two was made.
The Wells car suffered a nearly undrivebale front end damage in the contact. This contact allowed Hutchings and Nye to sneak by and claim positions one and two with three quarters of a lap to go.
