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McClelland
Reaps Labor Day Special Rewards At Salina Highbanks Speedway
John Lemon
OCRS Public Relations
Salina Oklahoma
(September 3, 2011)- With holiday boaters prancing on the Hudson Lake in
the horizon, Tulsa’s Sean McClelland did some prancing of his own on top of the
mammoth highbanks at the Salina Highbanks Speedway Saturday night for his
second consecutive Oil Capital Racing Series A Feature victory and fifth for
the season.
Coming into the event, McClelland brought a 58-point lead with him
towards the march to the “Harold Leep Championship Trophy”. When you’re the
point leader, the last thing your competition needs to do is provide you a
helping hand, but that’s exactly what they did tonight. Dewey Oklahoma’s Andrew
Deal, in his Burk Oil / Dyno Services sprinter and Sapulpa’s Danny Smith, in
the Same Day Auto Repair / BMS Engines / 5 dollar motorsports.com machine
started the 25-lap affair on the front row with Owasso’s Matt Sherrell in the
Sherrell Paint and Body sponsored car inside row two with McClelland outside of
Sherrell in the Maxwell Oil / Lawton Auto Parts / Finishline Machining number one ‘Black Widow’.
When
the field came to take the green flag, much like taking a director’s cue, Deal
and Smith parted as if they were going into the pre-race three wide formation
and McClelland split the pair right down the middle and had the lead by the
time they all hit the first turn. McClelland would lead the opening lap at the
line with Deal, Smith, Sherrell, 2011 Rookie of the Year points leader Josh
Toho, Johnny “Hot Rod” Kent and “The Princess”, Shayla Waddell all in tow. Said
McClelland in post race interviews, “It’s like they just moved over for me.
They could of put their hands out and waved me by if they wanted to because
that’s what it looked like they did. I went when they went (to start the race)
and Deal went to the bottom and Danny went to the top. It looked like they both
were spinning their tires and my car didn’t spin a tire so I went right down
the middle and said Thank You and went on.”
Within the first three laps, McClelland would begin to put some sizable
distance between himself and the field in what early on, looked to be a
cakewalk for the cagy veteran, but that would be far from the truth. The
feature’s first yellow came out on lap five when Whit “The Gasman” Gastineau
would come to a stop in turn three with a deflated right rear tire. The series
leader in main event victories would not return for the restart for rare back
to back DNF’s. Just prior to the yellow, Waddell had taken the sixth spot from
Kent. The front runners would run in order throughout the next several laps
with Kyle Clark and Darien Roberts each working their way past Kent for the
spot behind Waddell. They then proceeded to put on an epic battle exchanging
positions multiple times. There were a few laps where they passed one another
two and three times before a full lap was completed. While all this was taking
place, McClelland had extended his lead.
Smith then
found the promised land. Having maneuvered his machine on different racing
lines, Smith found the quickest line before McClelland and Deal did. Over the
next round of laps, Smith closed in on Deal first, took second from him on the
fifteenth lap and he immediately closed in on McClelland. Smith made an attempt
to pass for the lead, but McClelland was able to withstand that challenge. The
next lap, Deal met his race misfortune when he came in contact of the lapped
car of Fred Mattox. They each would stop in turn two and both would restart at
the rear of the field.
On
the restart, Smith found McClelland had taken the quick line he had explored
and knew it would be an uphill battle from then on. “With a guy like Sean, you
can’t show him the fast way around the track and not complete the pass and I
showed it to him and didn’t complete the pass so I paid the price for it,” said
Smith. “I moved around and found a better line and the yellow just killed us.
By then, he had seen my nose and it was all over for me.” McClelland would
still get enormous pressure from Smith but he would take the win with Smith
reading the rear of McClelland’s seat label at the line. Toho would earn his
best career OCRS finish with a third, Waddell, who was making only her second
start on the highbanks, had started eighth and tied her season (and career
best) with a fourth and Sherrell would take the next spot.
Toho
was quite pleased with his performance for the night in the BnK Automotive / Mobil Mart sprinter. “The game plan
was to go out there and follow Sean because I know he knows his way around this
place but he just took off (due to the great start) and I just had to find a
good rhythm and I found the middle by accident. After I got by Sherrell and
Deal, I ran Danny and McClelland down in lapped traffic and I started licking
my chops a little bit, then we had that caution. The car got a little bit tight
after the caution and we just kind of held on after that.”
Waddell, who carries a large fan base wherever she appears, was equally
pleased in the run in her Shores – Sentry / Production Engines / Red Rock
Distributing purple rocket ship. “I think between the first and second caution
(periods) is when I knew the car was really good. It was really fast towards
the end of the race. This car was just really good tonight. The first time I
came here (last June) I goofed up because I spun out twice. I was (still)
comfortable with my first time here and I knew coming back, I really liked it
(highbanks). I like the fast tracks. The bigger and faster, the more I like
them.”
The
point standings have jostled around a bit with the events of this race. Rafe
Essary entered the night third in points and had closed in to within 23 points
for second. Essary was involved in an accident in the third heat. While banged up
a bit but otherwise OK, Essary’s car was done for the night and his misfortune
allowed Sherrell to move into third place in the points chase. Essary sits next
only 15 points back of Sherrell.
Alex
Sewell of Broken Arrow took the
win in the 12-lap B Feature with a thrilling side to side battle with
Collinsville’s Dean Drake Jr. Bristow’s Tim Kent and Broken Arrow’s Darien
Roberts also earned transfer berths with Sewell and Drake Jr. into the A
Feature.
The next 2011 tour stop for the Oil Capital Racing Series
will be the “Sprint Car Super Show” next Friday night at the Outlaw Motor
Speedway in Oktaha Oklahoma.
Salina Highbanks Speedway
Race date: September 3, 2011 - Event 15
27 Cars
HEAT 1: 1, Andrew Deal. 2, Josh Toho. 3,
Fred Mattox. 4, Glen Passmore. 5, Dean Drake Jr. 6, Whit Gastineau. 7, Jamie
Passmore. 8, Casey Wills. 9, Darien Roberts.
HEAT 2: 1, Sean McClelland. 2, Danny
Smith. 3, Shayla Waddell. 4, Shane Sellers. 5, Alex Sewell. 6, Tim Kent. 7,
Kevin Guinn. 8, Brian Roberts. 9, Beau Gastineau.
HEAT 3: 1, Matt Sherrell. 2, Layne
Himebaugh. 3, Johnny "Hotrod" Kent. 4, Kyle Clark. 5, Kevin Cummings.
6, Robert Claunch. 7, Will Scribner. 8, Brent Swift. 9, Rafe Essary.
B FEATURE: 1, Alex Sewell. 2, Dean Drake Jr.
3, Tim Kent. 4, Darien Roberts. 5, Kevin Cummings. 6, Kevin Guinn. 7, Beau
Gastineau. 8, Brian Roberts. 9, Casey Wills. 10, Brent Swift. DNS: Rafe Essary.
A FEATURE: 1, Sean McClelland. 2, Danny
Smith. 3, Josh Toho. 4, Shayla Waddell. 5, Matt Sherrell. 6, Kyle Clark. 7,
Glen Passmore. 8, Jamie Passmore. 9, Dean Drake Jr. 10, Alex Sewell. 11, Tim
Kent. 12, Darien Roberts. 13, Johnny "Hotrod" Kent. 14, Andrew Deal.
15, Layne Himebaugh. 16, Fred Mattox. 17, Robert Claunch. 18, Will Scribner. 19, Whit Gastineau. 20,
Shane Sellers
http://OCRSRACING.COM
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