Newberrytown, Pennsylvania…….Robert Ballou is officially en fuego. He made it a sweep of the “Eastern Storm” on Sunday night at Susquehanna Speedway Park, edging into the lead just before halfway and going relatively unchallenged over the final stages of the evening’s 30-lap AMSOIL Sprint Car Feature to take his seventh victory of the young season.
Shane Cottle got the jump from the pole to take the lead over Justin Grant, but Grant was fast early and closed to Cottle’s tailtank as they completed lap one. Grant tried a slidejob into turn-one, but he looped it in the middle of the corner, bringing out the first caution.
Three more cautions followed in the first five laps with nothing changing among the top-five runners. Cottle was strong on the high side as Kevin Thomas, Jr. ran second, racing three-wide with Jon Stanbrough and Chase Stockon, who tried the bottom and middle. It didn’t take long for Ballou to start moving, as he ducked low and moved all the way to Stockon and started chasing down Cottle.
He finally squirted underneath Cottle for the lead on lap 14, coming to the line just .038-seconds ahead. A lap later, the final caution of the event appeared, but Ballou was strong and the bottom and marched away from a top-five battle including Cottle, Stanbrough, Stockon, and a charging Chad Boespflug.
Up front, it was all Ballou as he nailed down the bottom to take home his 16th career series victory in the Tom Buch – Blakesley Auto #12 Maxim/Ott. Ballou also posted the night’s ProSource “Fast Time” award.
“This is what we’ve been trying to build this team up to. We wanted to contend for a championship this year, and we’ve gotten people to put the pieces in place, so if we just keep winning races, everything will work out. They love sprint car racing out here in Pennsylvania, so I love winning out here. Tom Buch makes this trip possible for us, and I’m happy to get some wins for him. We were pretty darn good on the bottom tonight, and I pushed too hard in the heat race and made a mistake, so I knew I couldn’t screw it up,” Ballou said.
Stanbrough was charging on the bottom, as well, in the latter stages and rolled to the second spot aboard the MP Environmental Services – AED Motorsports Products #81 Spike/J&D.
“Tonight, I made some mistakes and lost some spots, and then gained some back too. I finally committed myself to the bottom just because I hadn’t been going anywhere. I don’t know if I had anything towards the end for Robert – I felt like I was gaining on him a little, but it woulda taken a long, long race to ever catch him. I’m never happy with second, but I feel like we’re making more and more gains. It’s been a lot of work to get this team going and make our stuff better, so we’ll try to make ourselves a little bit better and try to win some races back home,” Stanbrough said.
Stockon was again on the move in the Superior Tank & Trailer – Crescent Electric Supply #32 DRC/Fisher, and he rounded out the podium, as he tries to keep up with Ballou in the point race for the AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship.
“The yellows again tonight hurt us really bad. The first part of the race, we could go pretty good through the middle, but every time we were going forward and getting away from Robert, we caught a yellow. As the middle slicked off some, it got harder for me to make ground. I had to move around as the race went on and ran those guys down, and it’s good to be on the podium again. We’ve had a couple good nights out here and ready to get back home,” Stockon said.
Dave Darland came from tenth to snag the fourth spot in the Phillips/Curb-Agajanian Motorsports – Trench Shoring #71P DRC/Foxco, and Cottle held on to round out the top-five in the Specialty Rigging – Viper Risk Management #3 Spike/Rider.
AMSOIL USAC SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE RESULTS: June 7, 2015 – Newberrytown, Pennsylvania – Susquehanna Speedway Park – “Eastern Storm”
QUALIFYING: 1. Robert Ballou, 12, Ballou-17.251; 2. Chase Stockon, 32, 32/TBI-17.623; 3. Chris Windom, 21x, Pollock-17.648; 4. Kevin Thomas, Jr., 17RW, Dutcher-17.839; 5. Jon Stanbrough, 81, Stanbrough-17.973; 6. Justin Grant, 40, Hery-18.070; 7. C.J. Leary, 5, Baldwin-18.129; 8. Shane Cottle, 3, Franckowiak-18.174; 9. Chad Boespflug, 66, Amati-18.201; 10. Dave Darland, 71P, Phillips/Curb-Agajanian-18.307; 11. Tracy Hines, 4, THR-18.349; 12. Aaron Farney, 15F, Farney-18.445; 13. Brady Bacon, 69, Dynamics-18.519; 14. Kyle Cummins, 3R, Byram-18.576; 15. Jarett Andretti, 18, Andretti Autosport Short Track-18.715; 16. Casey Shuman, 75, Barnhill/Hockett-18.882; 17. Richard Vander Weerd, 39, Hogue-18.952; 18. J.R. Berry, 74JR, Berry-19.055; 19. Landon Simon, 24, LSR-19.207; 20. Rick Horn, 01, Horn-19.301; 21. Logan Jarrett, 29, Jarrett-19.407; 22. Harris Kohen, 0, Kohen-19.412; 23. Trevor Kobylarz, 14, RT-19.420; 24. Brett Arndt, 1A, Biasi-19.466; 25. Dick Mahoney, 79, Mahoney-19.858; 26. Tony DiMattia, 50, DiMattia-20.210; 27. Robert Bell, 71, Bell-20.431; 28. Michael Hamer, 47, Hamer-NT.
FIRST HEAT: (8 laps) 1. Bacon, 2. Boespflug, 3. Stanbrough, 4. Jarrett, 5. Ballou, 6. Mahoney, 7. Vander Weerd. NT
SECOND HEAT: (8 laps) 1. Darland, 2. Grant, 3. Stockon, 4. Berry, 5. Cummins, 6. DiMattia, 7. Kohen. NT
THIRD HEAT: (8 laps) 1. Simon, 2. Hines, 3. Andretti, 4. Windom, 5. Leary, 6. Kobylarz, 7. Bell. 2:35.19
FOURTH HEAT: (8 laps) 1. Shuman, 2. Thomas, 3. Farney, 4. Cottle, 5. Arndt, 6. Hamer, 7. Horn. NT
SEMI: (12 laps) 1. Ballou, 2. Leary, 3. Cummins, 4. Kobylarz, 5. Vander Weerd, 6. Arndt, 7. DiMattia, 8. Hamer, 9. Bell, 10. Mahoney. 3:43.10
FEATURE: (30 laps) 1. Robert Ballou, 2. Jon Stanbrough, 3. Chase Stockon, 4. Dave Darland, 5. Shane Cottle, 6. Chad Boespflug, 7. Justin Grant, 8. Jarett Andretti, 9. Chris Windom, 10. Kevin Thomas Jr., 11. Aaron Farney, 12. Brady Bacon, 13. Landon Simon, 14. Tracy Hines, 15. Brett Arndt, 16. J.R. Berry, 17. Logan Jarrett, 18. Trevor Kobylarz, 19. C.J. Leary, 20. Kyle Cummins, 21. Casey Shuman, 22. Richard Vander Weerd. NT
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FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Laps 1-13 Cottle, Laps 14-30 Ballou.
NEW AMSOIL NATIONAL SPRINT POINTS: 1-Ballou-950, 2-Stockon-926, 3-Darland-905, 4-Stanbrough-832, 5-Bacon-828, 6-Hines-762, 7-Thomas-753, 8-Leary-688, 9-Windom-575, 10-Grant-571.
FINAL EASTERN STORM POINTS: 1-Ballou-207, 2-Stanbrough-186, 3-Stockon-185, 4-Darland-177, 5-Hines-150, 6-Cottle-136, 7-Thomas-134, 8-Grant-131, 9-Bacon-130, 10-Windom-129.
NEXT AMSOIL NATIONAL SPRINT RACE: July 4 – Putnamville, Indiana – Lincoln Park Speedway
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