Saturday, August 24, 2002 - Park Jefferson Speedway
Heat - Our confidence was high arriving at the track for the first time in several weeks coming off a good run the previous week. John would start 2nd in his heat race and would beat pole sitter Todd Halverson into turn one. John stretched out his lead, trying several lines, and taking it easy on the car. John would go on to win his first heat race in SEVERAL weeks.
A Feature - Things fell into place tonight with just enough cars not qualifying for the feature that we would garner the pole position for the night's A-main. John would drag race pole sitter Derek Smith's #88d into turn one, but Derek had the preferred line on the tacky race track and was able to claim the top spot. The race was halted several times in the opening laps for cautions. John tried to pass Derek for the lead several times on his normally preferred low side, but was never able to close the deal. Following a restart on lap 8, John had a nose on the outside of Derek entering turn 1 and made a daring pass on the high side, he would open up a 5 car length lead by the middle of the back stretch and open it up over the remainder of the lap. The following lap brought out a red flag following an incident in which Rich Hesse and Jimmy Cole would tangle ending with Hesse's car rolling over turn 1. Both would drop from the race and not return. We were set for a big points gain if John could keep the car out front. After that incident was cleaned up the field would again get rolling with John pulling away to a comfortable lead and holding on for his 3rd feature win of the season!
Standings - With Rich Hesse and Jimmy Cole both falling out of the race, John was able to move past Cole into the 3rd position and would trail 2nd place Kyle Koster who would finish in the top 5 by 38 points and Rich Hesse by 78. After getting into the 3rd position we've set our sights on the next position held by Kyle Koster. |
