By – Chris Meyers
Photos – Bob Stascak
The PPG Vibrance Collection Midwest Supermodified Association returned to Sandusky Speedway for the second time in three weeks for Reed’s Salvage night. At the first show, Timmy Jedrzejek appeared to be the class of the field, and tonight, the storyline was no different as the four-time MSA champion continued his dominance at the storied ½ mile oval.
London, Ontario‘s Mark Sammut and Sandusky, Ohio‘s Jack Smith led the twenty-one car field to the green flag with Sammut wasting no time taking over the lead. Brandon Fisher took his machine to the pits on lap three. Sammut’s lead didn’t last long as Bobby Dawson motored to the lead on lap four. By lap five, Charlie Schultz had worked his way up to fourth from his eighth place starting spot. Timmy Jedrzejek would follow Schultz into the top five on lap six. The race played out in very quick fashion with several three wide passes involving the top-ten and several lapped cars. The top five continued to be Dawson, Sammut, Henes, Schultz, and Jedrzejek as a seventeen lap green flag run ensued.
Just at the halfway point, Jedrzejek was able to catapult his Allegresso-built machine past Schultz and Henes to work his way into the top three. The fast paced race was suddenly brought to several slow downs on lap seventeen. The first caution would fall for Tim Ice making contact with a lapped car. Ice would head pitside to get repairs to his #77. Pitting for the night at this time were Mark Miller, Robbie Evans and Jimmy Paller, who had overheating issues. On the restart, several cars bunched up causing the yellow to remain out. Involved in this melee were Randy Burch, Rich Reid, and Bobby Haynes Jr. Burch and Reid both went to the pit area for repairs while Haynes was able to restart at the tail. Ice was able to rejoin the field at this juncture, still on the lead lap, and Brandon Fisher also came back out several laps down. After the restart, Jedrzejek and Schultz went to work on Sammut. Jedrzejek was able to pass Sammut but as Schultz went to pass Sammut, a right front spindle broke ending his night. Sammut went to the pits suspecting a flat tire, but was able to rejoin the field. Rich Reid also rejoined the field at this point, also still on the lead lap.
After it all was said and done on lap seventeen, the top five was Dawson, Jedrzejek, Stephens, Smith, and Denny Fisher. Completing lap nineteen, Jedrzejek was able to take over the lead by passing his teammate. The pace slowed for the final time as the red flag came out for a bunch of cars blocking the track in turn one. The incident was caused by contact between Henes and Armbruster, but also collected were Rich Reid and Sammut. Everyone’s night was done except for Rich Reid with Mark Sammut sustaining heavy front end damage. The last ten laps played out with no further slow-downs. Tim Ice was able to motor back to sixth after having pitted on lap seventeen.
Timmy Jedrzejek continues to stretch his lead in his quest for his fifth MSA championship. When asked about his supermodified and how his raceday unfolded, Timmy J. explained, “We weren’t that good earlier in practice. We just made the right adjustments and went out for qualifying. We knew we had a pretty good setup at that point and just adjusted for the heat and feature. The cards played out but early on we were stuck back in traffic a little bit. Bobby had about half a track lead and I couldn’t even see him when I got to third place. Thankfully the cautions fell our way and grouped things back up. Hats off to Bobby and his crew, they really had a strong car tonight. My guys worked hard all week after a disappointing run at Lorain last week. We’re pretty excited about this new car.â€Â
After the race, Timmy and his Reed’s Salvage crew immediately shifted their focus to the “King of the Wings†race in two weeks. “We’re going to take this thing home and do as much maintenance and setup work on it as we can. We were pretty fast with the car earlier in the year at Oswego in qualifying but tripped on ourselves a little bit for the feature. We didn’t have as good as a result as I think we were capable of that night. I’m pretty excited! I love the Oswego Speedway, King of the Wings, and ten thousand to win. It’s going to bring out a lot of other tough competition and I’m looking forward to it.â€Â
Bobby Dawson finished third at Sandusky a few weeks ago and bettered that tonight. Just like his teammate Jedrzejek, he’s also focusing in on the “King of the Wings.†“The car was running real good tonight. I’m looking forward to going up to Oswego and running with those guys again. Hopefully we’ll have our act together when we go up there. I want to contend for it. I’d like to thank Reed’s Salvage and Carol Reed, it’s her birthday tomorrow. This is her birthday present-us running first and second. Thanks to Stewart’s appliance, Eschtruth excavating, PPG-what a fantastic series sponsor, Level performance-what an awesome motor, and Keith for taking care of our truck and trailer.â€Â
After picking up a win at the Oswego Speedway and a couple of top three finishes, Trent Stephens had a few tough races in his rookie campaign. However Stephens ran strong in the feature tonight in the ACME Racing machine. Trent stated,†It was a good run for us tonight. The car took a little bit to come in but once it came in, it was pretty fast. It was just as quick as Bobby and maybe Timmy, I’m not sure. We’ve got a good car but just have had a lot of bad luck the last few MSA races. I’m looking forward to keeping these top threes up. I’ve got to thank The Chevy Network, PPG Vibrance, Kasper Autogroup, Prostar Specialties, Delta Computers, SpeedMeetsArt.com, and Domino’s Pizza.â€Â
Tim Ice, Charlie Schultz, and Timmy Jedrzejek all picked up heat race wins earlier in the day. The cars and stars of the PPG Vibrance Midwest Supermodified Association will take a week off and resume racing at the famed “Indy of the East,†Oswego Speedway in New York, on Saturday, July 11th, 2009 for the inaugural “King of the Wings†event. The “Home of the Supermodifieds†will play host to many of supermodified’s top pilots across the United States in a 50-lap race paying $10,000 to the winner, tying the second largest payout to the winner in supermodified history. For the latest MSA news and results, check out MidwestSupers.com.
To keep up to speed with the latest happenings and information on the “King of the Wings†event logon to OswegoSpeedway.com.
Top Qualifier: Timmy Jedrzejek (14.839)
Heat One Results: Tim Ice, Mark Sammut, Jon Henes, Denny Fisher, Rich Reid, Robbie Evans, Mike Haury
Heat Two Results: Charlie Schultz, Randy Burch, Jack Smith, Bobby Haynes Jr., Brandon Fisher, Jimmy Paller, Kyle Reed,
Heat Three Results: Timmy Jedrzejek, Trent Stephens, Bobby Dawson, Gene Lee Gibson, Joe Armbruster, Matt Palmer, Mark Miller,
Feature Results (30 laps, 9 car inversion): Jedrzejek, Dawson, Stephens, Smith, D. Fisher, Ice, Palmer, Haynes, Reid, Burch, Haury, Gibson, Henes, Sammut, Armbruster, Schultz, Paller, B. Fisher, Evans, Reed, Miller
Top 5 in points
Jedrzejek 214
Burch      194
Dawson   192
Schultz    186
Ice           185
