Saturday, June 22, 2002 - Park Jefferson Speedway
Heat - John started 4th in the 3rd heat race behind the #77 of Kyle Koster. On the start John & Kyle moved to the front past the #55K of Korey Woelber and #7t7 of Todd Gruis. There were 29 mods on hand tonight with an unusually high number of first time cars, so it was important to get a good start and a top-3 in the heat to get in the inversion. That would prove to be a very doable thing, as John & Kyle drove away from the rest of the field. John was running very well and was on Koster's tail throughout the race. John would let off over the closing laps to coast home with a 2nd place heat finish, and a position secured for the A-main.
A Feature - John would once again start from the 8th position in the A Main. The track was once again a cross between tacky & dry, but mostly dry. We had some discussions on the right setup for the race after intermission and decided to go with a setup that would start out tight but get faster in the closing laps. It proved to be the right call! When the green fell, John quickly moved up passing 5 cars in the first lap, John would move by the #'s 7t7, 5H, 20, 88x, and 7x by the end of the first lap. Kyle Koster led from the outside pole followed by Paul Hemmingson who started from the pole. John chased Hemmingson for 5 laps until Paul had trouble in turn 4 of the 5th lap. The car was (as anticipated) very tight in the opening laps and John wasn't able to close on Hemmingson and Koster in those early laps. John would restart in 2nd and set out to claim his 2nd straight feature win. The car was again tight at the start but on lap 9 Koster caught the lapped car of Mark Nolen who had returned to the track after the restart, Koster was unable to get around Nolen immediately, and John quickly closed on Kyle, catching him coming down the front stretch on the 10th lap. John was inside Kyle entering turn 1 and held his position as Koster squeezed down on the exit of the corner. The two cars got together with John coming out on top with the lead. Over the closing laps John discovered that the car handled best when he went into the corner hard. He would lead the final 6 circuits to claim his 2nd straight feature win!
Standings - When you win you gain points...period. Hesse finished 4th. After restarting in the 5th position on the only restart of the night he was unable to move up much farther. Chuck Clark finished 7th, and John is only 10 points behind Chuck who holds the 2nd spot in the standings. John still trails Hesse by 36 points, but was able to pass Jimmy Cole and move into 3rd place in the standings. We haven't been able to close on Hesse as much as we'd have liked over the past few weeks, but we have chopped 12 points off his point lead while climbing back to the top 3 in the standings. Consistent top-5's have again paid dividends. |
