Haskell’s Night Goes Up In Smoke
It’s a good thing Dale Glassford and Gregg Haskell are such good friends or else the conspiracy theorists would have a a field day after the Ridgetown native’s seventh straight feature win.
Glassford inherited the lead when Haskell’s engine blew up with six laps to go and went on to win the mid-season championship in the Westside Performance Plus UMP Late Models on Saturday night at South Buxton Raceway.
“Oh yeah, I’m disappointed, but that’s not the whole story … that was Dale’s back-up motor!” Haskell said, smiling at the irony of his misfortune.
The Chatham driver has suffered a rash of motor issues this year, prompting Glassford to lend one of his spare engines.
“I was joking with Gregg, I told him ‘if it’s going to blow up, I’d rather it blow up on you than on me,’ ” Glassford said laughing.
“But this isn’t the way you like to win,” Glassford said in a more serious tone.
“He had a fast car tonight, so those guys have to be really disappointed,” he said of Haskell’s team.
Glassford started fifth and dodged a couple of early crashes to run in the top four through the early laps.
Ridgetown’s Jason Haskell led the first nine laps before tangling with the lapped car of Blenheim’s Jim Van Dyk on the backstretch to bring out the caution.
On the restart, Gregg Haskell quickly got by his brother and brought Glassford with him into second place, where they ran for the next nine laps before the Chatham driver’s night went up in smoke.
“We had half the race to go, and I was thinking we were going to have a great finish … then it happened fast, a little puff of smoke and he pulled off,” Glassford said.
Wallaceburg’s Mike Lewis, Chatham’s Brad Authier and Jason Haskell were the only other drivers to finish on the lead lap.
It was Glassford’s 36th feature win since 2010, the most of all drivers.
Leamington’s Joel Dick also extended a lengthy feature win streak with his six in a row in the Schinkels Gourmet Meats UMP Modifieds, as he took the lead from Shrewsbury’s Jim Dale Jr. with nine laps to go in their mid-season championship race.
Dick started inside on the fourth row, moved into fourth on lap five and pulled into second one lap later thanks to a strong run on the outside after a restart.
“Battling Jimmy was nice, we went door-to-door for a lot of laps, it’s always good, hard clean racing with him,” said Dick, as it took two laps to complete the pass.
“I had a lot of momentum but wanted to make the pass clean, I drove it hard into (turn) one and it stuck really nice and carried it around the track.”
Blenheim’s Brian Speelman and Chatham’s Louis Clements finished third and fourth.
Chatham’s Jake Hooker won the Tirecraft Sport Stocks mid-season championship, as the 14-year-old led all 25 laps for his second straight and third feature win of the year.
“It’s pretty crazy to win two in a row, but for the second one to be the mid-season (championship) is unbelievable,” the Chatham teen said.
Hooker had to hold off the four-time reigning series champion Eren Vanderiviere for the final 20 laps.
The veteran Vanderiviere came away impressed with the 14-year-old’s prowess.
“He’s fast, there’s no question about it, he’s smooth and he runs a line that’s hard to get by,” Vanderiviere said.
“I was a little tight, so I really needed room to throw it in there. I tried going in high and tried on the bottom but he just wasn’t giving up an inch to let me get a run on him,” said Vanderiviere, who won the previous three straight mid-season features.
Hooker said he tried to think about who was behind him.
“I just concentrated on hitting my marks, the line we had was pretty good so I thought it was going to be pretty hard to get around me,” he said.
Dresden’s Matt Sorrell passed Cottam’s Rob Quick with two laps left in the Tirecraft Mini-Mods mid-season championship.
“I got a run going into four and held it to the floor and it stuck around the ‘D’ and cleared him going into one and onto the backstretch.
“I’ve never beaten him under a green flag before, so that was a big accomplishment for us,” he said of passing Quick.
Blenheim’s Kyle Hope also got by Quick to finished second. Blenheim’s Jeff Schives and Trevor Jones were fourth and fifth.
Windsor’s Jamie Beaulieu led all 17 laps to win the Autotech Bombers mid-season feature, with Melrin’s Cale Johns second.
South Buxton will host ‘Quad Memorial Night’ this Saturday with four memorial feature races – Gord DeWael late models, Brian Outhouse modifieds, Len Bryden sport stocks and Cory Schives mini-mods. Racing starts at 6:30 p.m.
In case of rain, the racing program will be rescheduled for Sunday starting at 5 p.m.
