Toledo Speedway

Eric Lee won his third Late Model feature of the season and his 12th of his career at Flat Rock Saturday night.

"The car was really strong the first 25 laps. I let the 150 get away from me a couple weeks ago when we had a flat tire. We've had a lot of bad luck in between the wins. I'm just trying to stay on top of the points race," said the driver of the Arrow Uniform Rental, Labelle Electric, Jacks Garage, D&E Landscaping, Posen Construction, Mona Vie, Dusty's Collision, Powertran Transformers, Applied Roofing, Keller Williams Realtors, Auto/Con Corp., ET Performance, Complete Prototype Services #5.

Paul Pelletier dropped out with a broken driveshaft. Justin Shroeder's car lost the rear axle.

Mike Jaynes drove Steve Cronenwett Jr.'s Street Stock Saturday night. It was his first time in a Street Stock in 11 years (his last race was in 1997). He started on the pole for the A division feature and held off Regan Ford for this first Street Stock win since 1996. "That was a blast. Thank God for this win. I was used to having Bill (Barr, who owned Mike's Late Model for the past 10 years) in my ear during the late model races these last two years ... so I wasn't too sure how far Regan (Ford) was behind me. I want to thank Mark Sherrard, Steve (Cronenwett) Sr. and Jr. Also the Oakland Whitecaps (baseball team) for being here. The last time I was racing and they were here, I won the Late Model feature," said the driver of the Detroit Tubing Mill, Mark's Toy Box, Jaimes Enterprise, 4 Star Steel #21.

The A main drivers did a terrific job, running their 25 lap feature without a caution.

Scott Selmi finished third, his best finish of the season.

The B division started with a rather confusing turn of events. First B division points leader Rich Abel pulled into the pits on the pace lap. Come to the rescue was teammate Lonnie York, who parked next to Rich's disabled #50 and Rich got into Lonnie's car. It took a while to figure out whether this was a legal move once the cars were on the track. Unlike years ago (see below), once a car is on the track, you can't switch drivers. Since Lonnie was going to get the points, in comes Rich back to the infield and got out and Lonnie got back into his #25. So we're back where we started, Rich is in the #50, which sits out of commission in the infield. They announced Lonnie would get his spot back, but he ended up starting in the rear. He did pass the most cars during the 15 laps, and finished fifth. He was moving so well, if he would've started ninth, he may have finished higher.

Even with Rich finishing last, he still has a 315 point lead on Joe Gramlich.

Okay... Years ago, this is probably in the late 80's, 90's... I'm not quite sure when they quit doing this, but I remember quite a few times coming down for the green the A division would have a accident. If there was a car that couldn't continue, the driver would hop into one of the B/C division cars, start the feature in the borrowed car. The driver of the borrowed car would then drive the same car in their feature. It really was interesting, just waiting to see who in the B/C division would give up their car.

There was an winner in the B division feature ... Larry Smouthers was victorious. "Thank my whole family and crew. It's wonderful to finally win ... it's been a rough season," said the driver of the #98.

We were missing one of the Burkhardt Brothers. Don sold his #47 to crewmember, Darrell Krause. Tonight was Darrell's first time in a racecar under racing conditions (he did do the MIS class). He held his own out there. He barely missed getting a top 10 in his first feature, finishing 11th. If he continues this well, he should be able to get his first top 10 soon.

And Don Burkhardt, he got a new car and he's suppose to have it out next week. But you'll have to wait until next week to find out which division, because he is changing divisions.

Returning were John Huebner (Sr.) and Johnny Huebner Jr. John Sr. had a good return, finishing second (Johnny finished 22nd).

Considering Saturday was a full moon there only one really hard hit, Rookie Greg Hinzmann hit the backstretch wall hard during his heat and was unable to run the feature.

The only other strange thing was Jeremy Miller in the feature. I noticed about lap 2 that what I thought was his rotors were really glowing as his braked to make the turn onto the oval (turn 4). I noticed the next lap through, it wasn't the rotor, but behind the tire and it was getting brighter. A couple laps later his car's engine compartment erupted in flames. He drove though the infield and kept going until the Safety Truck could get to him. That was lap 4 and after the fire was put out, he retired to the pits. Several laps later we had another red and who should come back onto the track, but Jeremy. The float screw came out of the carburetor and that dumped fuel onto the exhaust. He finished the race and finished 14th.

Billy Earley won the Figure 8 feature. His last win at Flat Rock one year and a week ago on Aug. 11, 2007. "I didn't have the fastest car but I had enough to hold off Dennis (Whisman). I hope this means all our bad luck is gone. I had a blast tonight," said Earley after his seventh career win at Flat Rock.

Congrats to our Toledo winners...

Howard Kelley Jr. won his second consecutive feature of the season bring his season total to three and his career total to 16.

Josh Bunting won the Factory Stock A main, his first of the season and his ninth career win. The win puts him into third on the Factory Stock feature win list.

Dennis Futrel won Factory Stock B main. Next time I'm at the track I'm going to have to check and see if this is the same Dennis Futrel that raced when the previous owner had the track.

Dennis Whisman won the Figure 8 feature, his first victory at Toledo this season and 18th of his career at Toledo.