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Shadow Report (Pics added) - June 6 NASCAR CTS 200 + Super Stock 50.

Shadowracer · 2009-06-07T00:23:04Z

Crowds shoulder to shoulder in the grandstands. Concession lineups you had to elbow your way through just to get down the concourse to the bathroom. Cars parked on the road halfway back to Komoka. And a thrilling yet controversial race finish. Yeah...Delaware is officially BACK on the grid!Delaware Super Stock 50 lap feature.The race starts 24 cars with 3-Perkins on the pole, with 77-Lake alongside. Next is 76-Reid, 2-Prudhomme, 11-Lidster, 98-Morneau, 52-Clark and 99-Nagy. Perkins jumps out to an early lead with Reid and Lidster right behind. The three form up a lead pack and begin to break away. At this point, the field seems to be playing it reasonably safe, so not too much jostling in the early going. Reid looks like he's got something for Perkins and tucks in behind waiting to make a move.Now we're getting close to the halfway point and the leaders are beginning to come onto lapped traffic - lapped traffic that doesn't want to heed the blue/yellow stripe flag. Perkins is stopped by back markers running side by side, and in the melee, Reid gets by for 1st. At one point the 3 car gets caught in the high lane and gets passed by Lidster and Lake. At the halfway yellow/checker, its Reid in front, Lidster 2nd, Lake 3rd, Perkins 4th and 52-Clark 5th.Now a the restart, Reid, Lidster and Lake begin to put a little distance in from everyone else. They're beginning to pull away when 7 Shelds backs it into the turn 2 wall. Caution. Now there's a series of cautions, most minor. When the race gets going, the top 3 are still the top 3, Clark and 51-Rabideau are drag racing and battling each other for most of the race. (Clark won the Time trials and was the fastest car out there...so it looked good on Rabideau to be able to stay on the outside with him.) Next in line is another drag race between Perkins and 24-Richmond, which Richmond would eventually win. All this, entertaining as it was, was just allowing Reid, Lidster and Lake to get away.So now on lap 36 we have our only major caution, as Sheilds and 9-Dejesus get together on the frontstretch, with DeJesus hitting the front wall hard, and collecting 48-Louie McColl in the process. Now a little bit of drama as an irate DeJesus gets out of his wrecked car and goes after Shelds (also out of the car) to give him a talking to. An animated discussion takes place on the front straightaway. Interviewed on mic shortly after, DeJesus was just exasperated because Sheilds had been involved in a couple spins up to this point and, according to DeJesus, didn't seem to know when to recognize he was in over his head and when he should back out.So after the restart, the order is the same, with Rabideau and Clark still dueling for 4th. At lap 41, Lidster finally makes the pass on Reid for 1st, leaving Lake and Reid to battle side by side for 2nd, and Lake eventually prevails. This sets up the closing laps, with Lake perma-glued to Lidsters bumper. In the end, Lake can't do it cleanly and ends up a hard fought 2nd.Final - 1st to Lidster, 2nd to Lake, 3rd to Clark, 4th to Reid, and 5th to Richmond.All in all it was a good showing for the Super Stock guys. Not too much rough stuff which was nice, and all in all, Richmond Row and the CRO denizens had a pretty respectable showing. Jake Ott, son of JWOracing, looked good out there today keeping a good line and keeping his nose clean. Look for good stuff coming from the 60 team in the future. Richmond looked good and steady, and Perkins also looked good after some pretty crummy "start of season" luck. Lake was fast and could have easily stunk up the show by dumping Lidster at the end, but chose not to. Kudos to the Lake team!NASCAR Canadian Tire Super Series.Now...a blow by blow account of a 200 lap race is beyond my capabilites, and in the interest of getting to bed before 6am, I'm just going to hit some of the highs and lows.Note - JR Fitzpatrick was in attendance tonight, but not as a driver. He was actually spotting for DJ. In an interview after, JR said he was more nervous as a spotter than he'd ever been as a driver. So then...9-Dilley starts on the pole with 22-Steckly alongside, followed by 17-Kennington and 4-Thompson, then 3-Hathaway and 60-Beauchamp. Dilley takes the early lead with Kennington right on his bumper, followed by Thompson. Kennington makes the pass on lap 12 and begins to put in some distance. In the early going, not too much rough stuff and the field gets strung out a litte bit. Kennington is a rocket and soon has the lead well in hand.Theres a moment when Kennington slows up a bit and Thompson gets by, but soon Kennington's back out front.Lap 46 sees Delaware alumni 19 Brad Graham in the pits for a flat tire, but ends up staying there for a good portion of the race, putting him out of contention. At the 50 lap mark, the order is Kennington, Dilley, Beauchamp, Hathaway, Steckly, 12-Gaunt, and 27-Ranger.39-Whitlock seems to be having a tough go and on lap 5...

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SS3

Jun 08, 2009 6:47 am

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The London Free Press coverage of the NCATs Event is at:

http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/Sports/Motorsports/2009/06/08/9709341-sun.html

-------------------

"No place like home for Kennington"

AUTO RACING: The St. Thomas native wins the inaugural NASCAR Canadian Tire Series Delaware 200
By JIM CRESSMAN

DELAWARE -- D.J. Kennington has raced at some of the top stock car tracks in North America, including the granddaddy of 'em all, Daytona International Speedway.

But he says none compare with the opportunity to "come home" to Delaware Speedway.

Kennington can say it's "home sweet home" after winning the inaugural NASCAR Canadian Tire Series Delaware 200 on Saturday night in front of 6,000 spectators.

Even though the 31-year-old from St. Thomas has competed at Delaware since he turned 16 and won his share of Friday night features, he'd yet to win a major touring series event on the half-mile.

"I'd never closed the deal here. It's just awesome to be back here and to win," said an emotional and exhausted Kennington. "I've raced Daytona and a lot of other great tracks (in the NASCAR Nationwide Series), but it's just so good to be home,"

"It is home, it is where I started everything and to be able to go from here to racing in the Nationwide Series . . . it's come full circle for me and I'm just a lucky guy. I really am."

The fans got their $39 worth as the race went an extra 21 laps and had three tries at a green-white-checkered finish.

Kennington took the lead on lap 146 and then battled Don Thomson Jr. of Ayr on the first two attempts to end under green.

The first time, Thomson jumped the restart and NASCAR officials brought out the yellow and ordered another. On the second, Thomson may have jumped just a little early to get the lead. Going into turn 2, Kennington tapped and spun him, which brought about a huge cheer.

After no penalty to Kennington, the third restart saw him and Ron Beauchamp Jr. of Windsor on the front row but this time Kennington wasn't to be denied, beating Beauchamp to the stripe by .516 seconds for his first series win since 2007.

"Donnie tried to close the door and I'll admit I got into him," Kennington said. "I was trying to move him up (the track), but I didn't try to turn him. I feel bad because he and I are good friends.

"I don't like to race that way but that's hard racing. It's a tough race, it's a tough track and you've got to fight for every inch. I'm sure we'll race hard again."

The NCATS uses the double-file restart instituted yesterday by NASCAR Sprint Cup. The Nationwide and Camping World trucks will also use it as it's designed to provide excitement -- which it did Saturday.

"I got a good restart that last crack there and my spotter said I was clear, so I went down and the 17 car (Kennington) rooted me in the butt and sent me flying," Thomson said.

"I am surprised he did it. I'm sure he wanted to win really bad. My disappointment is more with D.J. than it is with NASCAR. NASCAR wasn't driving his car. I beat him to the corner and . . . he decided to turn me the very first chance he got."

This was the first time the NCATS was at Delaware, which broke ties with CASCAR after the 2005 season and saw no Super Series races in 2006. NASCAR bought CASCAR in 2007 and the Canadian Tire Series was born.

Kennington said it was one of the largest crowds the series has drawn at an oval track.

"It was a good show. I wish we could come here two or three times. (Track promoter) Arlen Scherba has done a good job fixing this place and when they do the repaving (of the surface in the fall), it's going to be one fast race track."

Thomson won five CASCAR Super Series championships.

"It was great to come back to Delaware and see a lot of people I haven't seen in years," he said. "The autograph session was crazy. Hopefully we'll be back more and more."

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Jun 08, 2009 7:18 am

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The Super Stocks got a dedicated article too:

http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/Sports/Motorsports/2009/06/08/9709351-sun.html

----------------------------------

"Lidster grabs super stock win "

Mon, June 8, 2009

By JIM CRESSMAN

DELAWARE -- It wasn't by chance the Delaware Speedway super stocks were on the same program Saturday as the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series.

Fans had an opportunity to see a division that's come full circle as the original super stocks (or street stocks as they were initially called) developed into the top touring stock car series in Canada.

Jason Lidster of St. Thomas won the 50-lap super stock special and its $1,000 prize, which ran prior to the NCATS Delaware 200.

"I'll put that money in the bank and I guess I'll only be down about $6,000 this year on my race car," Lidster said.

"But it's great that the race track would put us on the same night as the Canadian Tire Series. That was a tip of the hat to us. This division usually puts on a pretty good show and the guys take a lot of pride in their cars."

Delaware race director Jeff Wilcox said the street stocks were the creation of former track promoter and CASCAR founder Tony Novotny.

"Tony came up with the CASCAR street stock rules in the mid-80s and this is what they were basically. They evolved into the CASCAR Super Series and that evolved into what we see out here today, the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series," Wilcox said.

"They're not real expensive race cars but they're good race cars. And they've got a lot of good drivers in it. Even some of the Canadian Tire Series drivers, after the qualifying for the super stocks, commented to me that these cars are getting around really good, for just bone stockers."

Wilcox said the super stocks earned time in the spotlight.

"This was a big purse ($2,000) for those drivers and it's a big race for them and a big crowd (6,000) to run in front of -- and it's also the division that the (touring) series basically developed from."

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Shadowracer

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Jun 08, 2009 7:26 am

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"It was a good show. I wish we could come here two or three times. (Track promoter) Arlen Scherba has done a good job fixing this place and when they do the repaving (of the surface in the fall), it's going to be one fast race track."

That's an interesting statement.
😉

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biffisgreat

Jun 08, 2009 4:15 pm

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hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm? ;D ;D ;D ;D

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racerfan44

Jun 08, 2009 4:30 pm

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Reguarding the statement in LFP about coming to Delaware 2 or 3 times .If I was a betting man I would put money on 2 races next year with one of them being a 300 lap race and who knows maybe the return of the Labour Day Classic.Now that would be a weekend of racing Saturday APC Race for Late Model cars and then Sunday the NCTS Series race.Would get big crowds for that weekend.Take a look if you were able to get 6000 fans for a 200 lap NCTS race who knows what they will get for a longer race .

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