This message was edited on
September 19, 2010 at
11:39:57 AM by KOP
4th
Annual “Oklahoma State Championship” Goes to Whit Gastineau!
By: John Lemon
Ada, Oklahoma
(September 18 2010) – Whit
Gastineau cruised to victory in the 4th running of the Oil
Capital Racing Series sprint car
special, the 25 lap “Oklahoma State
Championship”at the Oklahoma Sports Park in Ada
Saturday
night. For Gastineau, it was his fourth OCRS main event victory in only
10
entered events this season.
Gastineau
started outside the front row alongside pole
sitter Jamie Passmore in the feature
race in his Shell Oil & Lube / Larry
Allen Engines / Eagle chassis sprinter. Passmore, in his familiar G.A.P.
Roofing Eagle, won the drag race
to turn one only to have Gastineau sweep around him on the high side and
take
the lead coming out of turn two heading down the backstretch. Travis
“Hollywood” Jenkins tucked into third in the Mid-America
Speedway / Premier Homes
special with Robert Sellers in
the Select Coatings /
Waurika Truck & Tire #4x fourth.
Sellers
would overtake Jenkins on the third lap for the
show position while Danny Smith and Lee Jennings (one of
four Jennings
members racing this night), along with Gary
Owens, would combat one another for the fifth position. Gastineau
would
close in on lap traffic on the sixth circuit. In the meantime, Danny
Jennings would catch the
aforementioned parties to vie for that fifth spot from his tenth
starting
position. Owens began to move early by disposing of Smith on lap eight
and
Jenkins on lap ten to move into fourth. Sellers had been applying
pressure to
Passmore over the past couple of laps and made a move to pass by the
current
OCRS points leader for second on lap eleven.
A
yellow would put a halt to action on the next lap
for Joe Bob Lee who was slow to exit
the racetrack with mechanical problems. Smith stalled on the track with a
motor
problem and his race was over. The restart would see Gastineau on the
point
followed by the lapped cars of Tim Kent and Kerry Mac Alister
Sellers, Passmore,
Owens, Jenkins, D. Jennings, Smith and Lee Jennings. Before another lap
could
be put in the books, D. Jennings worked past both Jenkins and Owens. D.
Jennings would then close up the gap to third and took that spot from
Passmore on
lap 15. By the 18th lap, you could place a blanket over
Jenkins, L.
Jennings and Owens for the fourth spot.
Lee
Jennings took over fourth on the 19th
lap by passing Passmore in turn three and set his sights on Danny for
his next
target. Owens moved up a spot by also passing Passmore one lap later.
Misfortune found Sellers when his car quit running on the next go around
thus
forcing him to exit pitside. Gastineau took the white flag with five
lapped
cars between himself and second place Danny Jennings. Lee Jennings would
lose
third in turns one and two on the last lap allowing both Owens and
Passmore to
pass. “LJ” would finish fifth with Jenkins, Billy Frazier, Brady
Demeree Tyler Johnson and Kyle Clark completing the top ten.
Lawton’s
Tyler
Johnson outlasted Kerry McAlister
to win the 12 lap B Feature. Brady Demeree
and Tim Kent were two drivers that also
that earned transfer positions with their third and fourth place runs as
the
top four went to the A Feaure.
OCRS will resume
racing
action next Saturday night at the Wild
West Speedway in Clinton, Oklahoma.
Quotes:
Whit
Gastineau: “It didn’t
really matter who got out front first at the start. The best
car was going to win I thought. It was kind of nice to finally finish
one here.
It seems like we have had some bad luck here (in the past). I was
watching out
for the lapped cars. I really wasn’t sure how big a lead I had. We
really
couldn’t of done that (win the race) without Larry Allen our engine
builder. We
just had this one (engine) rebuilt in the last couple of weeks.”(Whit
says it was the first night out
for the rebuilt motor).
Danny
Jennings: “Running up on
those lapped cars helped me out more than anything. I had
to jockey around and find a position to find the better part of the
racetrack
and we just got to use it (lapped traffic) more and more and more and it
just
started to become my advantage and then we got to chasing Whit down and
that’s
all we can do. About half way through, the car really came to life. I
really
wish we wouldn’t of had those yellows at all because the longer we went,
the
faster we were getting. Overall it was a pretty good run, I can’t
complain.”
Gary Owens: “We
had a pretty good night tonight. I have to thank my dad, Glen Owens and
my
sponsors. I wish we could of gotten around lapped traffic a little bit
quicker tonight.
I thought we would have had something for at least second place but I
don’t
know about first, but we did have a pretty good night. There was some
slop on
the bottom (of turns 1 and 2) and someone ran through it and kicked it
up on
the track and then I got into it and it kind of put me behind the eight
ball a
little bit.”
OCRS
SPRINTS
30 Cars
Heat 1: 1)
Jamie Passmore 2) Robert Sellers 3) Danny Smith 4) Joe Bob Lee 5) Tyler
Johnson
6) Tim Kent 7) Fred Mattox 8) Terry Easum
Heat 2: 1)
Travis Jenkins 2) Whit Gastineau 3) Shane Sellers 4) Brandon Jennings 5)
Mike
Goodman 6) Andy Shouse 7) Kyle Ezell 8) Joe Wood Jr.
Heat 3: 1)
Kevin Pickard 2) Billy Frazier 3) Rafe Essary 4) Kyle Clark 5) Kerry
McAlister
6) Bruce Jennings 7) Shayla Waddell
Heat 4: 1)
Lee Jennings 2) Gary Owens 3) Danny Jennings 4) Frank Dittman 5) Brady
Demeree
6) Beau Gastineau 7) Jeff Garnett
Dash For Cash:
1) Jamie Passmore 2) Whit
Gastineau 3) Lee Jennings 4) Travis Jenkins 5)
Billy Frazier 6) Kevin Pickard
B Feature: 1)
Tyler Johnson 2) Kerry McAlister 3) Brady Demeree 4) Tim Kent 5) Bruce
Jennings
6) Kyle Ezell 7) Fred Mattox 8) Jeff Garnett 9) Mike Goodman 10) Terry
Easum
11) Andy Shouse 12) Joe Wood Jr. 13) Shayla Waddell
A Feature: 1)
Whit Gastineau 2) Danny Jennings 3) Gary Owens 4) Jamie Passmore 5) Lee
Jennings 6) Travis Jenkins 7) Billy Frazier 8) Brady Demeree 9) Tyler
Johnson
10) Kyle Clark 11) Rafe Essary 12) Tim Kent 13) Kerry McAlister 14) Beau
Gastineau 15) Robert Sellers 16) Shane Sellers 17) Danny Smith 18) Frank
Dittman 19) Joe Bob Lee 20) Brandon Jennings
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