The misty Pocono mountains fade as the sun arises to excellent Pocono Raceway action. The two points leaders await the green flag on the front row, as Craig Lee and the rest follow the draft line to a possible victory.
Scott Drake and Steven Lowe bring out the first two cautions quickly after check-ups entering turn 2. Randy Dobbins and Philip Parker were also involved in the melee's, and neither would recover to finish inside the top-35. Lowe and Drake would finish 24th and 37th by the end.
Tony Pizzaro and Tim McDonnell came in for tires during the multiple yellow flags. Dave Miller came out the leader entering the first green flag run, with John Battista and John Tharp each taking turns at the front.
Tharp, Johnny Reed Foley and Rick Jackson each dominated the run, with Pizzaro losing a lap after a blown tire in the tunnel-turn. McDonnell could only muster through the field up to 4th, as teammate Ben Geer followed through the pack in a Cinderella effort.
McDonnell, Geer, Ken Pettit and Alex Crapser bottled up to the front as Dave Miller lost grip on his older tires. Foley and Jackson both led double-digit laps by the end, and seemed to be the top-goers for the victory. It was proved as the wrong analysis quickly, as Ryan Heuser stole the show from nowhere to take his first lead of the race.
A battle for 2nd place with 39 laps to go turned deadly, as Foley and Pettit made contact entering the first corner battling for second. Foley slammed the outside wall rear-first as the oncoming chaos meandered passed the stopped AMP-mobile. Fortunately, he was not hit by oncoming traffic.
Zach Michael took the lead several laps after the restart. He and Ryan mustered enough horsepower to pull away from the pack with Ben Geer tagging along. It was a 3-wide melee for 4th between all three R2W and Team Danger Zone cars, who were clearly the cream of the crop other than Ryan and Ben.
Heuser and Michael swapped the lead six times before the final green flag stop with 12 laps to go. The #138 led a race-leading 40 laps while the #20 led 11 by the end. Geer followed the two in the awe of his dramatic top-3 performance. He had not recorded a top-13 all season.
Michael and Geer came in first, with Heuser in one lap later. The Domino's mobile came out over a second, but was reeled in by the "Rocket Man" in time for the final debris caution to come out. In the meantime, Johnny Reed Foley attempted to stretch the fuel all the way to the finish.
It was a three-lap shootout to the finish. Heuser and Michael were side-by-side for the entire first lap before the #138 took charge off of turn-3. Geer made his move past on the oncoming front-straightaway, as Michael was left to hold off his teammates and the R2W crowd to stay in 3rd.
Ben Geer came extremely close to victory, drafting up to the NOS Energy machine on the front-stretch coming to the checkered. The Quick-Silver horsepower ended up stealing the show, crossing the line in first and earning his league-leading 4th victory of the season. Congrats to Ryan, crew chief Mustard Mahoney, and the entire Quick-Silver Motorsports team for an excellent victory!
Second-in-points Tim McDonnell has not recorded a top-7 finish in 9-straight events. Last season, he went from "Mr. Consistency" to "The McDoninator" after his Pocono sweep set him on course to his second-straight series title. Craig Lee closes in with 5 top-7 finishes in the same span, only 19 points behind McDonnell and 125 out of the lead. He will start the first Pocono race in 18th, as Tim and points leader Tony Pizzaro monopolize the front row.
11th through 14th in points are separated by only 12 points in total, ranging from 73 to 85 points behind Matt Raboin for the cutoff with 9 races left in the regular season:
9. Scott Jackson:+91
10. Matt Raboin:+73
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11. Zach Michael:-73
12. John Tharp:-82
13. Johnny Reed Foley:-83
14. Dave Miller:-85
The two Pocono events take up 23% of the remaining races, as drivers remain vigilant to the Championship prize. Who can dethrone the American off-brand dominance in the second half of 2021? Perhaps nobody.
A battle of epic proportion after the south-lands wildfires spread halfway across the country. Ryan Heuser enters the race on the pole and looking for forward momentum on his fourth Championship crown. Tony Pizzaro comes in the points leader, winning one of the Duel events while Tim McDonnell starts deep in the field.
Heuser leads the first segment of the event in hands-down fashion. McDonnell gets lapped early, leaving Craig Lee, John Battista, Ken Pettit and Alex Crapser in line for advancement into the top-2 position in the standings. 24 cars would remain on the lead lap before 100 laps are complete.
Matthew Dominique and Rick Jackson make contact early to bring out the first caution. Alan Nesfeder and Steven Spears would also go for single car spins, with damage to the #78 as the cause of a 36th place finish. Fortunately, he would still finish ahead of Randy Dobbins and Bill Werkheiser in the points.
Dave Miller led 6 laps in between a segment of caution flags. Matt Raboin took over in no time, and eventually passed by the #138 car to put Ryan a lap down. He had made an unscheduled pit stop under yellow for a loose lug-nut, and struggled to find the handling afterwards. He would finish 31st on the night.
A backstretch accident saw Donald Stewart up on zero wheels, sliding the side of his racecar against the asphalt. Steven Spears and Zakk Miller sandwiched the #55 machine, sending Muzzy for another wild ride in 2021. He would finish the event 32nd in points.
Matt Raboin led 98 laps before a pass from Craig Lee in the later half of the event. Matt led 98 laps in total, leading 344 total short track laps on the season. Tony Pizzaro would take the reigns several laps later, as the #12 and #101 battled continuously through lapped traffic.
Despite the roughneck racing between the top-2, they would become two of the only four cars on the lead lap. Zach Michael and Matt Raboin would battle for third right in front of the leaders. Before green flag stops, only the Pizzaro and Lee remained.
Half of the leaders pitted before a Rob Scarberry spin on the backstretch brought out the yellow flag after 100+ laps of green flag racing. Miraculously, Matthew Dominique, Ryan Heuser, Zach Michael and Scott Jackson all found themselves back on the lead lap. The Can-Bandit super-fuel engines of Ken Joynt and Mark Heron joined the parade as well.
Ken Joynt lost a lap after a spin in turn 3 in the ensuing restart. A Connor Germain spin sent the leaders for a frenzy trying to get by, as the #101 eeked by the Fenway machine to the caution line. It would be the final yellow of the race.
The final green flag run of the race was spread out. Craig Lee pulled from 3 to 5 seconds ahead of second place Matthew Dominique. Tony Pizzaro, Zach Michael and Scott Jackson has a multi-lap battle for third, with the #12 holding on to the position despite a Cola-charge on the penultimate lap.
The NOS Energy machine was no match once he got to the front. It would be Craig's second short-track victory of the season, propelling him to just 125 points behind the leader in the 2021 standings. Congrats to Craig, crew chief Spook Millikan and the entire Quick-Silver Motorsports team for an excellent victory!
Qualifying Results With only 10 races left in the regular season, the chase race appears to be as tight as ever. Scott Jackson and Johnny Reed Foley have meandered their way to several straight top-10 finishes in-a-row, and have eeked their way into the top-10 in points. Matt Raboin and Dave Miller have been knocked out after crashes at Chicagoland, but are still on the borderline of Championship livelihood. Here are the standings between 9th through 12th:
9. Scott Jackson:+14 10. Johnny Reed Foley:+7 ----------------------------------------- 11. Matt Raboin: -7 12. Dave Miller: -13
Tony Pizzaro enters the Fairgrounds 42 points ahead of Tim McDonnell for the Championship. Tim has still completed every lap this season. With the possibility of not making the feature, and the simplicity of going a lap down in a 320-lap short track race, the streak may end this week.
Every driver inside the top-16 in points made the Nashville Feature other than Jimmie Stevens. The Cinderella story will take a deep hit, handing the opportunity for Rick Jackson, Zach Michael, John Tharp, Dave Miller and Matt Raboin to fly inside the chase bubble. Here are the points accumulated for every driver that missed the big show:
52 Points: Jimmie Stevens (16th, Duel 2) 49 Points: Scott Deutsch (17th, Duel 1) 46 Points: Michael Henson (17th, Duel 2) 43 Points: Dakota Wilkins (19th, Duel 1) 40 Points: Randy Dobbins (19th, Duel 2) 37 Points: Bill Wekheiser (20th, Duel 1) 34 Points: Tony Long (20th, Duel 2) 31 Points: Glenn Kaufmann (21st, Duel 1) 28 Points: Brodrick Wittmann (21st, Duel 2) 25 Points: Jim Fitzmaurice (22nd, Duel 2) 22 Points: Bink Lucas (23rd, Duel 1) 19 Points: Jaxon Vaccher (24th, Duel 1) 16 Points: Brian Lowe (24th, Duel 2) 13 Points: David Baldinger (25th, Duel 1) 10 Points: Stephen Lowe (25th, Duel 2) 7 Points: Steven Davis (26th, Duel 1) 4 Points: Mark Guthrie (26th, Duel 2) 1 Point: Scott Drake (27th, Duel 2)
What was once a monument of success and fulfilled dreams turned into an inferno from the depths of the underworld. The fires have been tamed for the most part, as the cornfields of the mid-west plains and the Mississippi River diminished the spread. Racing will be underway in two weeks, as the grandstands need repair and the track surface ready for de-burning. "Piqua was 100 miles from obliteration" said Rick Jackson. "Thank goodness for gods' vegetable crop: the corncob". With the maize-fields considered the pinnacle reason for the wildfire's near-extinction, every fan from Duel #1 to the end of the Nashville feature will receive two corn cobs. One for feast, and one for waving in the air as their favorite driver roars past.
Bonanza proved to be the eye of the storm, as the thunderous roars commenced after the post-race festivities. Several firebolt shots terrorized the outskirts of the city, sending forests ablaze from miles on end into the abyss. No word on when racing will return to this area, as the ash particles fly across the sky and into the windows of racing fans homes. "The ash cinders burned my race ticket. It's hotter than a Death Valley scorpid dipped in tabasco!" The homeowner preceded to throw ice cubes at towards the wall of flames.
