Hope Outraces His Competition, And The Rain

Blenheim’s Shawn Hope beat the competition – and the rain – to win his fourth Autotech Services Bombers feature race in the last five weeks on Saturday night at South Buxton Raceway.

A steady rain started falling moments after Hope collected the checkered flag and the race night was called after a 20-minute wait.

The second round of preliminary races and feature races for South Buxton’s other four classes were washed out.
Hope started in the third row of the 13-car field and moved into second place on lap two.

He took the lead from Chatham’s Chris Ellerbeck after a restart on lap seven and led the rest of the way,
Ellerbeck held on for second, followed by points leader Jeff Schives and Austin Pickering, both of Blenheim, and Port Lambton’s Vic O’Leary to round out the top five.

Schives and Hope won the heats, their 14th and 12th checkered flags of the season, respectively.
The Hope brothers almost completed a hat trick as Brett won his heat while Kyle finished second in his heat in the Tirecraft Mini-Mods.

Points leader Trevor Jones of Blenheim and Chatham’s John Pinsonneault were the other Mini-Mod heat winners.
Merlin’s Brad McLeod and Chatham’s Darryl Hoekstra won their first heats of the season in the Schinkels Gourmet Meats UMP Modifieds.

Chatham’s Gregg Haskell won his heat race in the Westside Performance Plus UMP Late Models for a third straight week while Chris Ross, of Charing Cross, won the other heat.

Wheatley’s Steve Clements and Grande Pointe’s Tyler Lozon won the Tirecraft Sport Stocks heats.

The division standings changed little as a result of the shortened race night.

Ridgetown’s Dale Glassford has the closest division lead as he sits 16 points ahead of Chatham’s Jim Jones in the Late Models.

Trevor Jones padded his lead atop the Mini-Mods to 26 points over Cottam’s Rob Quick, who suffered a hard crash into the turn four wall in his heat. Quick was helped out of his car by the track’s emergency crew and was checked out by paramedics.
Eren Vanderiviere holds a 46-point lead over Steve Shaw as the Merlin drivers lead the Sport Stocks division.

Leamington’s Joel Dick has the biggest division lead as he is 153 points ahead of Belle River’s Mario Toniolo.

Schives is 114 points ahead of Ellerbeck in the Bombers.

The Ontario Topless Sprints return for their second visit to South Buxton on Saturday, Aug. 23. Please check the track’s web site www.southbuxtonraceway.com for updates for Saturday’s program.