This message was edited on
May 15, 2011 at
10:13:10 PM by KOP
It's 3 In a Row For
Gastineau!
John Lemon / OCRS Public Relations
Moore driver takes 3rd
annual Harold Leep Jr. Memorial
Ada,
Okla. (May 14, 2011)- Like
the old saying goes, “When your hot, your hot” and
Moore Oklahoma’s Whit “The Gasman” Gastineau is on
fire. At the Oklahoma Sports Park in Ada, the Gasman
pulled a restart power move with just four laps to
go on Norman Oklahoma’s Danny Jennings enroot to his
third consecutive Oil Capital Racing Series main
event conquest in the third annual “Harold Leep Jr.
Memorial event.
Jennings took the led
immediately from the drop of the green flag in his
Goodyear Tires / Lucas Oil / Car and Fleet sprinter
from the pole position which was earned by virtue of
his Dash for Cash event win earlier in the evenings
program. The Gasman started outside of the front row
and dropped in behind the Norman bullet as they
swept through turns three and four. Fourth heat
winner Rafe Essary and second heat winner Chris
Burns, making his first sprint car start since 2009,
followed behind the front tandem.
Jennings would lead
throughout the feature and had to endure several
stoppages along the way. The first occurred on lap
four when the red was displayed for a flip by
Brandon Jennings in turn three. Jennings was done
for the night but otherwise OK. The race was just
into lap five when a yellow flag was unfurled for a
spin by Andrew Deal in turn four. Deal was sitting
in the center of the track and was collected by
Kerry McAlister ending the night for both.
Once
underway, flagman J.D. Etter dropped yet another
yellow flag before a lap would be complete when Kyle
Clark would come to a halt between turns three and
four. He would restart at the tail. The restart
would see Jennings in command, Gasman second
followed by Essary, Burns, Kyle Cobb, Danny Smith,
Mike Goodman (up from 15th),
Johnny Kent, Joe Bob Lee, Matt Sherrell (up from 17th)
and Gary Owens, who was up from 18th.
On the restart, Smith
would overtake Cobb going through turns one and two
and Goodman would do the same to Kent a lap later.
Owens and Sherrell were waging a fight of their own
between the ninth row starters with Owens, from
Pauls Valley, taking eighth from the Owasso Oklahoma
speedster. A yellow would fly yet again shortly
after and this time it was 2011 OCRS rookie of the
year contender Josh Toho who would be sitting idle
in turn three with a mechanical failure. On the
ensuing restart, Kent would slide up and over the
edge of turns one and two and find himself at the
tail end by the time he recovered.
Jennings and Gastineau
would put several car lengths between themselves and
the field as the laps began to click off. Cobb would
lose several spots when he would get too high in
turn three on lap fifteen. Lap sixteen would see the
cars of Burns, who was driving a team car from the
Scott Waddell racing stables, and Smith get together
on the back straight and find themselves locked
together. Burns would be towed in while Smith
restarted.
The restart would not
only see Jennings and Gasman ready to square off
again, but with Essary holding down a quiet third
and with Burns and Smith out of the pecking order,
those back marker starters of Goodman, Sherrell and
Owens were lined up fourth – sixth and all three
were looking for more victims. Another yellow,
brought out by a Cobb spin in turn four, halted
action two laps after the restart. Cobb would not
rejoin the field for the finish. Jennings had
survived every stoppage presented to him then came
lap nineteen.
Another yellow was
brought out for a restart spin by Blanchard’s Jeremy
Allen in turn four and that would prove to be a
pinnacle factor in the outcome. Gastineau timed his
restart maneuver to perfection and he overtook
Jennings as the two screamed down the front chute
and sailed into turn one. The Gasman would get
around Jennings for the top spot with the well timed
move While all this was taking place, Goodman’s
excellent run from the back hit a snag when he
sailed high in turns one and two thus loosing four
positions back to eighth. The night’s final yellow
came out when Jeff Leep, son of Harold Jr, spun to a
stop in turn two. At this point, the OCRS officials
called for a green white checker finish.
Gastineau, in his
Goodyear / Shell Rapid Lube / Larry Allen Racing
Engines / Eagle sprinter would fend off the final
challenge presented by Jennings for the win.
The victory put Gastineau into the points lead over
Sherrell. Sherrell and Owens would each overtake Essary in the
waning laps to complete excellent runs by both
drivers as each passed fourteen cars to equal the
best passing jobs by a given driver in the feature.
In B-Feature action,
Sherrell won a thriller over Deal by nipping the
Dewey driver at the finish line in the first of two
semi mains. In the second last chance affair, Owens
was victorious with 16 year old Harli White, driving
a Larry Neighbors racing entry holding off Sean
McClelland for the final transfer position. White, a
standout in micro sprint racing, was running just
her second ever sprint car event. McClelland entered
the nights action as the OCRS points leader.
The next event for the
OCRS racing series is round number five at Kerry
Gorby’sCaney
Valley Speedway in Caney Kansas next Friday night,
May 20th.
Driver Quotes
Gastineau:
When asked about not being able to take the lead
after multiple restarts: “I really wasn’t to worried
about it. I knew my car was pretty much horrible in
the beginning of the race but I thought it (track)
would take on rubber and it pretty much did. I was
pretty good those last 5-10 laps and I knew we were
just as good as he (Jennings) was and I was pretty
much watching his line and was adjusting mine just a
little bit. I don’t know if we would have gotten
around him in lapped traffic or on one of those
restarts.”
On the winning move:
“I dove underneath him (turn one) and slid up in
front of him. I thought he was going to slide back
underneath me and get me back there (turn two) but I
just kept my line and we were fast. I hammered the
right front and right rear tires pretty good. We
were fortunate to finish. We finished without the
Jacob ladder hooked up and had a bent right rear
wheel. I hadn’t hit the bottom (spot in turn one)
good all night and neither had he, and I wasn’t sure
if it was going to hold or not, but I was going to
take a chance. I was kind of scared about third
place getting up there but I thought if I could get
a good enough of a run, I could dive underneath him
and make it stick.”
Jennings: “Racing is racing and I’ve been a bridesmaid here
about the last six times or so we have raced here,
but we will take what we can get and go onto another
race.”
About trying to get
the lead back: “I was trying some long slide jobs to
where I could try to gather him (Gastineau) back up
where I could do something with him but it just
wasn’t going to happen. It started to rubber down in
one lane and who ever was there in the lane, that’s
where you were going to finish. There wasn’t much
passing that was going to happen up there. If it
weren’t for all the ‘start - stops’, it probably
would have been a different story but the last one
just got me.’
Sherrell:
“I think it kind of helped out that I got to run the
B feature. I had to start in the back because of
that but I learned a lot about the track from that.
We had a couple of breaks with the restarts in the
beginning then again, the restarts kind of killed
us. We would stumble on the restarts and they would
get away from us and we would have to catch back up.
Im really proud of this car and the crew tonight. I
have to thank Don and Pat for letting me drive this
thing. I found if I went up high and diamond down
(the car) into the rubber in turns one and two, it
worked a lot better. I used the banking to my
advantage.”
Owens:
About his 18th to fourth run: “It was a
lot of luck. We had a few cars that went over the
edge and we just capped on it and we had the car set
up just perfect. We just had a lot of luck and some
skill I guess. We set up our car a lot tighter than
most and we just kind of came up through there. It
seemed we made up most of our ground in turns one
and two on a bunch of them.”
Oklahoma Sports Park
Race Date: May 14, 2011 -
Event 4
37 Cars
HEAT 1:
1, Johnny "Hotrod" Kent. 2, Danny Smith. 3, Jeremy
Allen. 4, Kyle Cobb. 5, Harli White. 6, Travis
Jenkins. 7, Frank Dittman. 8, Fred Mattox. 9, Brent
Merchant. 10, Chuck Bellefeuille.
HEAT 2:
1, Chris Burns. 2, Joe Bob Lee. 3, Jamie Passmore.
4, Shayla Waddell. 5, Andrew Deal. 6, Sean
McClelland. 7, Kacee Frazier. 8, Matt Sherrell. 9,
Larry Neighbors.
HEAT 3:
1, Danny Jennings. 2, Josh Toho. 3, Terry McAlister.
4, Kyle Clark. 5, Mike Goodman. 6, Tyler Johnson. 7,
Terry Easum. 8, Gary Owens. 9, Tim Kent.
HEAT 4:
1, Rafe Essary. 2, Brandon Jennings. 3, Whit
Gastineau. 4, Jeff Leep. 5, Beau Gastineau. 6, Brent
Swift. 7, Casey Wills. 8, Justin Allen. 9, Jeff
Garnett.
DASH:
1, Danny Jennings. 2, Whit Gastineau. 3, Rafe Essary.
4, Chris Burns. 5, Kyle Cobb. 6, Johnny "Hotrod"
Kent.
B FEATURE #1 (Top 2 transfer):
1, Matt Sherrell. 2, Andrew Deal. 3, Frank Dittman.
4, Shayla Waddell. 5, Travis Jenkins. 6, Tyler
Johnson. 7, Brent Merchant. 8, Justin Allen. 9,
Chuck Bellefeuille. 10, Casey Wills. DNS: Tim Kent.
B FEATURE #2 (Top 2 transfer):
1, Gary Owens. 2, Harli White. 3, Sean McClelland.
4, Terry Easum. 5, Brent Swift. 6, Beau Gastineau.
7, Kacee Frazier. 8, Fred Mattox. 9, Jeff Garnett.
10, Larry Neighbors.
A FEATURE:
1, Whit Gastineau. 2, Danny Jennings. 3, Matt
Sherrell. 4, Gary Owens. 5, Rafe Essary. 6, Joe Bob
Lee. 7, Mike Goodman. 8, Jamie Passmore. 9, Kyle
Clark. 10, Danny Smith. 11, Harli White. 12, Johnny
"Hotrod" Kent. 13, Jeremy Allen. 14, Jeff Leep. 15,
Kyle Cobb. 16, Chris Burns. 17, Josh Toho.
18, Andrew Deal. 19, Terry McAlister. 20, Brandon
Jennings.
More information on the OCRS series can be found at: http://ocrsracing. com
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