Lady Luck Shines On Glassford – Again
Dale Glassford took the checkered flag Saturday – Photo by James MacDonald/ Apex One Photo
The Ridgetown driver avoided an early wreck and went to post his second straight and ninth feature win in 10 race nights in the Westside Performance Plus UMP Late Models.
Glassford was running in fourth when the leaders tried to go three-wide coming out of turn four.
Chatham’s Brad Authier got into the back of the leader Jim Dale Jr., of Shrewsbury, sending both cars into the wall just past the start-finish line. Both were knocked out of the race.
Chatham’s Jim Jones managed to squeeze by on the bottom with minor damage to the right rear panel.
And then there was Glassford, whose sixth sense told him to back off the throttle as he was able to steer clear of the mess without a scrape.
“We dodged another one,” Glassford said, with a smile.
“I have a lucky pair of underwear and I’ve been cleaning them a lot lately because we’re right around those wrecks.”
The reigning series champion could feel for a couple of laps there was going to be a big crash.
“It’s early, everyone wants to get in front and take off, and whenever I see guys’ back ends bouncing around and front ends coming together, I know I have to give them a little bit more room,” Glassford said.
“I seen Jimmy (Dale Jr.) and Brad coming out the corner and thought, I didn’t want to wind up on top of them, so I went the other direction,” he said of how he avoided the melee.
Jones chose the bottom for the restart, which pleased Glassford as he won the drag race through the first corner and never looked back, leading the final 15 caution free laps to extend his 2015 dominance.
“Tonight, you had to fly around the outside,” Glassford said.
“I struggled on the first restart on the inside so I knew I had to get out of there because it wasn’t going to work out for me.”
Jones held off Chatham’s Gregg Haskell to finish second, while Rodney’s Brad Simpson was the last car on the lead lap.
It was the second straight Saturday night that Glassford has won from deep in the field.
He started inside of row three on Saturday after winning from outside of the fifth row a week earlier.
Glassford’s lead increased to 127 points over Jones in his bid for a second straight and fourth career series championship.
Chatham-Kent drivers won all five features for the second week in a row as Blenheim’s Kyle Hope won his third straight in the Tirecraft Mini-Mods, Chatham’s Eren Vanderiviere his second in the Tirecraft Sport Stocks, Chatham’s Louis Clements his first in the Schinkels Gourmet Meats UMP Modifieds and Merlin’s Cale Johns his third in the Autotech Bombers.
Hope started on the pole and held off a mid-race challenge from Cottam’s Rob Quick to win his third straight feature.
“That was fun, when he got by me, we threw a couple of slide jobs and luckily I was able to throw the last one and pull away,” Hope said of the battle with Quick.
The 22-year-old Hope, who began racing as a 14-year-old in 2008, never won a feature race until his current three-win streak.
“I’ve had the car,” said Hope, who had five second-place finishes last year and three this season before finally making it to Victory Lane.
“Everyone believed in me, that’s why my crew is here, they know I can drive, they had faith in me.
“It’s just that things have been clicking these last three weeks,” said Hope, who padded his division lead to a commanding 186 points over Kingsville’s Dylan Wolters, who finished 13th.
Blenheim rookie Jeff Schives finished a career best third – his third straight top-five finish. Essex’s Tom Reimer and Chatham’s Rick Balasin were fourth and fifth.
Clements survived an early battle with Merlin’s Jeff Daniels as he has won at least one feature every season since moving up to the Schinkels Gourmet Meats UMP Modifieds in 2011.
“It’s something I’m very proud of,” Clements said of his streak.
Clements has been the unlucky victim in other drivers’ wrecks all season, as he had just one top-10 finish in the first nine features.
“We have a new car this year and we were trying to get use to it and figure out what I needed, but we kept getting in big wrecks that was costing a lot of money and a lot of work,” Clements said.
“We’re finally able to work on the set-up more and the last three weeks and we could feel us getting better, we’ve turned the corner,” he said.
Clements started the 20-lap feature in the second row, pulled into second on the first lap and went door-to-door with Daniels for the next seven laps.
“That was a lot of fun,” he said of the early battle with Daniels. “With us being friends, we gave each other lots of room, we never touched … it was good, hard racing.
“I finally got the high side momentum and it worked to my favour.” Clements said.
Chatham’s Eugene Hoekstra moved into second after a lap-12 caution and pressured the leader before Clements drove away in the late laps to take the checkered.
Leamington’s Justin Coulter finished third for the second week in a row, with Clayton Smith of Taylor, Mich., and Daniels rounding out the top five.
Vanderiviere admits his chances of winning a fifth straight points championship are slim, but Saturday’s performance shows his race team is not throwing in the towel.
“It takes a lot of good luck to win a championship and I had a lot of good luck over the years, but it’s just switched this year with flat tires and blowing a motor,” Vanderiviere said.
“But we’re not going to give up, we’re going to keep plucking away and hope those guys can maybe have their bad nights too.
“I hate to say it, but that’s what it’s going to take,” said Vanderiviere, who is fourth in points, 112 points behind Kingsville’s Rob Young with just five race nights left in the regular season.
Vanderiviere took the lead from Wallaceburg’s Willy Vyse on lap four and led the final 16 circuits, holding off Young after a caution with three to go erased his lead.
Vyse, Merlin’s Steve Shaw and Dover Centre’s Tyler Lozon rounded out the top five.
Chatham’s Jake Hooker finished seventh in his bid for a fifth straight feature win.
He was running second when he spun with five to go as he tried to run down Vanderiviere.
Young and Hooker won the heats, as the Kingsville driver padded his lead to 28 points over the 15-year-old Chatham driver.
Johns started in the fourth row but moved into second on lap two and took the lead from Blenheim’s Evan Bonner on a restart one lap later and led the rest of the way for his third Bomber feature win.
Windsor’s Jamie Beaulieu, Kingsville’s James Kelly, Blenheim’s Kyle Gill and Merlin’s Bill Featherstone rounded out the top five.