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09/12/2011 |
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UNOH SHOWDOWN
- THOMPSON INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
by
Polly Reid |
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 It
was all about the cash at the end of the line. No
points, 50 green flag laps of racing with the pot at
the end of the run a cool $15,000 to the winner. A
combined race of the top finishers in both the
Northern Thompson 125 and the Southern Thompson 125,
the UNOH Showdown lined up with the best of both, a
36-car field ready to duel it out for the impressive
payday.
It started with an old fashioned coin toss, the
Southern Modified Tour winning the flip, electing to
start on the outside row. With the Northern field
lined up on the inside led by Doug Coby and the
Southern field on the outside with Southern Thompson
125 winner George Brunnhoelzl, III setting the pace.
But at the checkers it was Coby backing up his
dominating Northern Thompson 125 victory with an
equally impressive performance in the highly
anticipated UNOH Showdown taking the UNOH Showdown
title and including the sponsored laps led, raising
Coby’s total winnings to an unofficial $20,000 plus
payday for the once struggling to get a full time
Tour ride driver.
Ted Christopher followed across for second, James
Civali third, Brunnhoelzl III fourth and Eric
Goodale fifth.
“Anyone who doubted that 125 was boring and I had it
easy, I think we proved we had the car to beat
tonight with all those cautions. I hope we put on a
good show for all the fans. I want to thank UNOH and
Whelen for putting on this show and of course
Thompson Speedway, this is a great way to start
September. The car was unbelievable, I’ve never had
a car like this at any race track.”
Coby stepped out to lead from the green but was soon
challenged by Ted Christopher who moved into second
before the fifth circuit had clicked off. Carrying
the momentum, Christopher wasted no time going low
in turns three and four getting under Coby for the
lead on the 7th lap taking Preece and Civali with
him. Coby was shuffled back to fourth when the
second caution waved on lap nine. The restarts at
this point played into Coby’s favor and one circuit
into the restart was side by side with Christopher
and eventually completed the pass taking the lead
over for good on lap 13. Coby survived six more
restarts, warded off the challenges of Ryan Preece,
Civali then Christopher to take the checker flag for
his second win of the day.
“I’ve never had a car like that before, ever, it was
awesome. Sure there were some bobbles here and there
but I could go anywhere I wanted to- our team
deserves it. This is just unbelievable.”
“The guys gave me a good car there,” said
Christopher. “Just not quite good enough.
Congratulations to Doug, they had a great car here
all day. Once you get it right here it seems like
your day keeps going, he probably wishes he had a
few more races today.”
Civali backed up his podium finish earlier in the
day with a solid third, the Meriden, CT driver
pleased with his day at Thompson. “We had a couple
of good races today- the car was good we just
snugged up just a little bit for this race and try
to drive it harder. The first race we were saving a
lot so we wanted to go hard and have something at
the end but it got too tight, it never freed up for
us at the end there we couldn’t hold off Teddy it
was so tight, it was that close.”
Sixth went to Bobby Santos who took the green 27th,
seventh to front running contender Preece who was
shuffled back and ran out of time. “That was a
heartbreaker,” said Preece. ‘You know, if we went
green all the way I think I would have had something
for him. Our car was definitely starting to come in
more and more, we were really fast but then the
cautions came out and it seemed like we’d be on the
bottom for the restarts, we’d get into fourth, we’d
pick up a position to get back to Doug, the caution
would come back out and we’d be right back at the
bottom.” Eighth was Mike Stefanik who picked his way
forward from a 32nd starting spot, ninth to Justin
Bonsignore and Ed Flemke a solid tenth after taking
the green 21st. |
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Source: Polly Reid / TheChromeHorn.com
Posted: September
12, 2011 |
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