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Jeremy Sherman Takes the $1000.00 to Win at Prescott Valley Raceway!
There was much apprehension on the part of many Sprint car racers and fans as to whether it would be worth the one hour trip to Prescott from the valley to participate in last Saturday night's open comp night at PVR. Heavy rain clouds loomed all around the area threatening what seemed to be an inevitable rain-out. Many didn't know until too late that the purse would be worth the trip and had made other plans. Others had a "wait and see" outlook and made the trip to PVR to see how successful the concept would be. In spite of all, seventeen participants from all over Arizona and one from Texas would roll through the pit gate to Battle it out for the full house of race fans. Dwarf cars, Stock cars, Mini stocks, and Mod lights were also on hand leaving many skeptical as to how the track would hold up and how late the show would run. The sprint cars would round off the night being the last Main Event.
Preparations started early in the week to Rally up the night's sponsors that Included ABC Body Shop, Mountain Valley Performance, Rex Foster, Leff-t's Steakhouse, Motion Racing Engineering, American Insurance Group, Antelope Lanes, and Rythmz Lounge. The Norburys started working the track days in advance to make sure that the surface would be perfect all night long. Their efforts were met with success. At the end of the night little adjustment was needed to find the fast way around the tacky surface for the feature. PVR Staff also did a fantastic job of officiating as the last checker for the evening waved at 10:45.
The first Heat Started Nick Aiuto of Camp Verde on the pole. The fans were on their feet watching Aiuto three wheel his 27 car while battling to maintain the lead. He would finally give it up on the third lap to the 36 car of Brendan Higgins followed by Hitch hiker Larry Gibson who scored his ride last minute in the 91 car owned by Bugs Norbury.
First Heat Results:
36 Higgins, 91 Gibson, 27 Aiuto, 3 Brooks, 93 Quinn, 7x Murphy, 77 Marcum (DNF), 74 Williams (DNF)
The second Heat would be led to the green by Art Mankel of Prescott. Art would give up the pole position to Jeremy Sherman in the Dan Reagles entry followed by Josh Pelkey in the red and black Maxim owned by Mountain Valley Performance's Bobby Marcum. Mankel would finish fourth behind Matt Rossi. The ABC Motorsports car 12 car driven by Nathan High would pull in without taking the green with a broken spark plug insulator.
Second Heat Results:
44 Sherman, 85 Pelkey, 02 Rossi, 76 Mankel, 26 Brinkley, 32 Lee, 44x Welker, 77x Chester, 12 High (DNF)
The Main Event would start all 17 cars with the silver Maxim #36 of Brendan Higgins on the pole and the #44 car of Jeremy Sherman on the outside. The second row would be the 91 car driven by Larry Gibson and outside him would be Josh Pelkey in the 85 car. The rest of the line up was as follows;
27 Aiuto, 02 Rossi, 3 Harris Brooks, 76 Art Mankel, 7x Ryan Murphy, 26 John Brinkley, 77 Billy Chester, 44x Mike Welker, 74 Derek Williams, 77m Bobby Marcum, 12 Nathan High, 93 Justin Quinn, 32 Cliff Lee.
It wasn't long after the green dropped That Matt Rossi got tangled up with another car and scrubbed his front axle ending his evening early. The first lap after the restart was survived by all except for the 27 car of Nick Aiuto. Nick did a spectacular series of flips rounding turn four that ended his night. Later in the battle for the second spot Brendan Higgins executed a backflip that would rival The Nitro Circus using the back wall of turn three for his launch. It was a fast and tacky track right to the finish as Jeremy Sherman would dominate for all twenty laps. The Main Event was action packed and fast putting on a spectacular show for the fans! Trophies went to the top three finishers. Ron Swangler put up $50.00 extra to the fifth place finisher, and the top Challenge Cup finisher, ABC Body Shop awarded $50.00 to the top Challenge Cup finisher also, putting Art Mankel in the money for $100.00 over and above his purse money. The next Open Comp show at Prescott Valley Raceway will be Saturday September 12th. We hope it will be even bigger and better that this one.
Our special thanks to Jim Storm, Dee Crippen and the rest of the PVR staff for your patience, hospitality, and help in making this Open Comp Night a success!
Main Event Finish:
1 44 Jeremy Sherman,
2 85 Josh Pelkey,
3 77 Bobby Marcum
4 12 Nathan High
5 3 Harris Brooks
6 74 Derek Williams
7 26 John Brinkley
8 93 Justin Quinn
9 76a Art Mankel
10 7x Ryan Murphy
11 32 Cliff Lee
12 44x Mike Welker
13 36 Brendan Higgins
14 91 Larry Gibson
15 27 Nick Aiuto
16 77x Billy Chester
17 02 Matt Rossi
www.abcmotorsports.com
(The Arizona 12 cars)
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