Sept 9 Update: A little bit of video from the event, thanks to the Trevellin Motorsports Blog HERE

Let's just say it was a really wild night. But the weather once again was great, and a killer crowd was on hand to experience it. No one went home disappointed, except maybe the Chaos Car fans. Unfortunately the Chaos race was scrapped due to curfew. By the time races were over it was past 1130.

And yes John, the notebook filled up quite a bit tonight!

As of this writing the final tally for the Truck champoinship points is not complete.

It was the return of the Lucas Oil Sportsman Cup series, formerly the OSS, and even more formerly, the Delaware CASCAR style Friday night LM division before the switch to the underslung style Late Models. Reports were the count was at 26 cars through the gate, but 23 of them made time trials, including our own Racer43 aka Jay Doerr, driving Scott Lindsay's old number 20. Jay didn't seem to confident when I spoke to him before the races, but it sure as heck didn't show when they hit the track for the first 50 lapper.

But first, the Demar Aggregates Trucks. I'll leave it up to everyone else to talk about points, because frankly I lost track.

Demar Agreggates Trucks

Heat 1 saw the return of 16-Hosang driving her new truck, the former Throne Kings 91. Hosang was battling some troubles all night, starting off with tranny problems that didn't seem to get better as the night progressed. 8-Porter took and early lead, but was outmuscled on the last lap by 00-Johns. 1st to Johns, 2nd to Porter, 3rd to 55-Adriensen.

Heat 2 Was all the top points runners. 88-Fothergill brought it home in 1st, 56-Showler 2nd, 01-Bloemendal 3rd.

Feature

Starts with a couple of failed first laps. One incident saw Porter and 4-Thompson around in 3-4 and another saw a big schmozzle on the backstretch that sent trucks flying everywhere and sent 99-Koricina spinning around.

Once a couple of laps were on the board, it had shaken out to Johns in front, followed by Adreinsen, Fothergill, and Showler as your lead pack. Other than the start issues, the first part of the race was mostly uneventful, the top 4 running away while the rest of the field battled. Then things began to come unhinged. Its starts off with 33-McDonald going flying in the backstretch entrance with some kind of problem. I beleive there may have been a speeding issue, because he went flying thru there pretty quick. He came out of pit road of the pace, and stayed high going down the backstretch right in front of the leaders. Showler, being on the outside, was the one that stood to get slowed up by McDonald, but he scrambled around anyway.

So now 88 manages to make the move on Adriensen for 2nd place. Going into 3-4, Points leader Fothergill starts spewing sparks. Flat tire. Managed to keep it straight though. Well, straight up to the point that Showler got beside him on the outside, then the 88 started veering toward the wall...riding Showler in there with him. Now both the points leaders are damaged and coming into the pits for repairs. Now the question is, can the two points leaders get back out on the track before the green flies? Showler with heavy front end damage and Fothergill with a bad tire. SHowlers guys are beating the front end into something raceable, and Fothergills guys are changing a tire. They get the tire back on Fothergills truck, they drop it off the jack, and Fothergill drives away. Then one of his front tires falls before he even gets 20 feet, doing even more dmage to the 88 truck. The green flag flies with both still in the pits.

Johns still has things in hand up front, and he's now followed by 7-Clark and Demelo. Another caution when Porter and the 97-? go around in turn 3, buying 88 and 56 a little more time. After the restart, Demelo moves Clark out of the way to take 2nd.

Now on lap 22, the crowd is on their feet, because limping down the frontstretch is the 56 truck, front end nothing but a bare engine block between 2 tires, desperately trying to avoid a DNF. If he can make it out, based on the number of trucks out of the race already, he could take the points title. But wait....the dude with the stop sign at the end of pit road is not.frigging.letting.him.go. Well fine, maybe its a speeding penalty. Now its lap 23, and they're still not letting him go (thought speeding was a 1 lap penalty), now lap 24 and he's still sitting there. Fothergill is nowhere in sight.

When they come down to the checkers, its Johns with the win, Demelo 2nd, Bloemndal 3rd, Clark 4th and 31-Howard in 5th.

Now they let Showler go.

And why Showler didn't just leave his truck parked on the frontstretch in disgust and went home, I have NO idea.

Lucas Oil Sportsman Cup

This race was a homecoming of sorts for a lot of drivers, and it was obvious that quite a number of them wanted to win quite badly.

The First 50 - The Finish of the Year

The race starts with 10-Brown on the pole with Doerr alongside, then 82-Connelly and 42-Sheridan. Doerr grabs an early lead, followed closely by Sheridan. The race is interrupted a couple of times early with 12-Patrick spinning in 1, and later again with 93-Meyer in the same place. After the next restart, SHeridan pulls alongside Doerr and the two drag race with 27-Matt Robblee tucked in right behind. Then there's our first big spinout as a bunch of guys get together in turn 1, such as 5-Christie, 35-Marvin, 17-Fletcher (ex-Kennington car) and Meyer again. Meyer has a rough night the just keeps getting rougher.

Now on the restart, Doerr and Sheridan are at it again, side by side for 1st. (BTW, after tonight, I'm sold on double file restarts) Doerr and Sheridan put on an amazing duel that lasts about 10 laps, but finally Sheridan pulls ahead and by the 15th lap, Sheridan is decisively in front. Doerr loops it in turn 3, and 27-Robblee is sent to the back for his help in the matter.

Now the order is Sheridan, 01-Raabe (dirt phenom turned asphalt racer) then a side by side duel between 81-McGlynn and 28-Robblee. Raabe manages to get by Sheridan for 1st, and 28-Robblee shuffles back to 5th after some contact with 11-Weber. Meanwhile, 27-Robblee is cutting his way back to the front.

At the halfway its Raabe, Sheridan, Weber, S-Robblee and McGlynn. Robblee starts laying the rub on Weber and after some contact in the front pack the order is shuffled and 96-Prudhomme (sponsored by Kellogg's...who had a large contingent of people in the stands) is now up into the fray. The order is Raabe, McGlynn, Prudhomme and Robblee. McGlynn is up to Raabe and putting some serious pressure on him, but Raabe is hanging on like a champ. The two get together on teh fronstretch side by side and it ends up with both heading into the wall, and Prudhomme slip past into 1st. Raabe's car is toast after getting crunched between McGlynn and the wall.

Now we're into the waning laps and the order is Prudhomme, S-Robblee, M Robblee and 24-Didero. Robblee is all over Prudhomme. Giving him a shot here, there, and on the last lap Robblee gets alongside the two go screaming down the backstretch neck and neck.

Thru turn 3-4 they're still side by side....the crowd is on its feet....they cross the line....its a photo finish.

A real photo finish. As in, they didn't know who won, and had to check the tape.

And its.....(great pause for suspense by the announcers)....Robblee. Prudhomme 2nd, Matt in 3rd, Didero 4th and Wood 5th.

And the line of the evening from the announce crew came from guest announcer Jamie Maudsley. "Well, I think there's a whole pile of Kellogg's people in the stands that think that's just grrrrEAT!" (You did awesome tonight Jamie.)

The Second 50 - McGlynn vs Everyone

For now I'll just say a good way thru the second race, I began to ponder 2 things.

1. If there's only one guy left running, does he still have to do the whole 50 laps?

2. Just how the hell many guys do you have to hit deliberately before they actually remove you from the race?

More to follow. Let's just say McGlynn hit everything except the pace car. The top 10 were the ONLY 10 left standing.

Race was pretty much a war between Steve Robblee and McGlynn, but ended with the Robblees duking it out mano-a-mano for 1st, and this particular tilt was won by junior.

Matt Robble 1st, Steve 2nd, Christie 3rd, McGlynn 4th, Brown 5th

This will be updated tomorrow if I have time before the 300. Going to bed now. Stay tuned, I heard Maudsley might be putting something up tonight too. � ;D