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Schank Muscles To Second Place Finish at Spec Sprint Nationals
By PJ Petersen
Santa Rosa's Terry Schank Jr, came into this weekends Spec Sprint Nationals at Silver Dollar Speedway looking to defend his crown. Aboard the Matt and Megan Fontaine owned Maxim Schank came up a little short and finished a strong second.
Heading into the weekend all eyes were on the Fontaine owned #2x. The car has pretty much dominated the race in its first two years of existence as Herman Klein won it in 2005 and Schank won the race in 2006.
The night started off well for Schank as he took the RPM racing engines, ART enterprises #2x and set a new track record setting a blistering pace of 13.541. This was key because the unique format of the evening was a points format to determine the starting lineup for the main event, so heading into heat races Schank sat first.
The Joe Hunt Magnetos, SEM #2x lined up outside row two in heat one, and drove to a second place finish following Kyle Hirst. The finish in the heat race made Schank the high point man heading into the main event, and a number four pill was drawn putting the Hunt Starting Systems car outside the second row.
The initial start saw outside pole sitter Jimmy Sills take off with Schank in tow, but pole sitter RC Smith bobbled and made contact with Schank allowing Darrell Hanestad to take over the second spot with Schank in third. Hanestad would then grab the lead from Sills, and pull away. This left the battle for second as fans were treated to a good race between Sills and Schank. The battle lasted 18 laps as Schank then overtook the second spot and began to chase down Hanestad. To Schank's advantage a late race yellow bunched the field up giving the defending race winner one shot at defending his championship. On the restart Schank went low, and made it stick but Hanestad closed the door, and cruised to his first Spec Sprint Nationals Championship, and Schank followed closely in second as Sills rounded out the top three.
The weekends success could not have been possible without the support from Larry Lightfoot Truck Repair, Optima Batteries, NGK Sparkplugs, Bell Helmets, Design 500 race wear, VSR Steering Repair, Roseville Precision Inc., Big Blaine Fabrication, AIC Powder Coating, TBSD Fabrication and Ballou Motorsports.
Schank will do battle again this weekend Oct. 19– 20th at Kings Speedway in Hanford Calif. For more information please visit our website at www.flyingcrownracing.com (P.Petersen).
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