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The Iceman
Claims $10,000 at Fairbury
Jeffrey A.
Bayless
Fairbury, IL
(July 16) Round 23 of DIRT Motorsports UMP Summer Nationals rolled into
Fairbury American Legion Speedway Saturday night with 46 of the areas best
in attendance to try their hand at the $10,000 top prize that was on the
line for the night's winner. When the checkers flew it was Menomonie,
Wisconsin native "The Iceman" Jimmy Mars riding his Deppe Enterprises, T.
I. Sinz Plumbing Inc., Heeg Well Drilling, Keyes Chevytown, Jimmy's Pub
sponsored Pro Power driven Mastersbilt horse to a hard fought victory.
The 9 car dash that would transfer
6 contestants to the 50 lap main event saw Shannon Babb jump to the early
lead with Mars right on his bumper. The duo would stay this way for the
duration of the event pulling away from the field with fast qualifier
Dennis Erb Jr., Billy Moyer, Kevin Weaver, and Rodney Melvin grabbing the
other transfer spots. Four heats would transfer three each to the main
event with 2 last chance races bringing 1 each and 1 provisional to make a
21 car starting grid for the feature. In the first heat Terry English
would lead the way coming home ahead of Steve Hillard, Patrick Sheltra,
and Ryan Unzicker who battled for 2nd most of the latter stages of the
race. In the second heat Randy Korte would claim the early lead but would
find himself sitting in the wrong direction in turn 3 on the 4th lap after
contact from second running Eric Smith. Smith would inherit the lead but
would come up 2 laps short of victory as Brian Shirley would slide by for
the win with 2 laps to go. Smith, Billy Drake, and Jr. Shickel would come
home behind him. In the 3rd heat Daren Freidman would lead the first 2
laps before pole sitter Mike Mullvain grabbed the point and went on to
victory leading Richie Hedrick, Mark Voight, and Freidman to the stripe.
In the last heat Jeep VanWormer led the entire distance taking the
checkers ahead of Mike Marlar, Roger Long, and Wes Steidinger. In the 1st
conci Freidman would lead the way as local favorite Joe Harlan came up
short in a late race charge to take the win. Jim Felker Jr., and Jay
Sparks would round out the top 4. In the second conci Wes Steidinger
grabbed the point and sped away from the field with Randy Korte, Jr.
Shickel, and Donnie Walden coming home behind him. Korte would then be
added to the field as the provisional and the field was set for some tooth
and nail action.
Babb would lead the pack into turn 1
with a 3 way contest for second right behind him with Mars on the outside,
Moyer in the middle, and Erb on the bottom. Mars would find some
excellent grip on the rim and blast by Babb down the back stretch like a
rocket sled on rails to lead the pack at the completion of the first lap
and immediately began putting real estate between himself and the
competition. By the 5th lap, the rim riding Mars was well in command with
a 10 car length lead over Babb who in turn was leading Erb, Moyer and
Melvin by a considerable distance. However, the field would be slowed on
the 6th circuit when Long would find the turn 4 wall brining out the races
first caution. When the action resumed, Mars would return to the rim and
once again take command of the field as 13th starting Hedrick was moving
forward in a hurry joining the battle for 3rd between Moyer and Erb on the
10th circuit. Hedrick would blow past this battle into 3rd and would
chase down and bypass Babb just a few laps later. With Mars tied up in
traffic on the 20th lap, Hedrick was leading Babb, Erb, Shirley, and Moyer
as this group was quickly erasing the cushion that Mars had built. Mars'
lead was down to just a few car lengths on the 23rd circuit and it
appeared a battle would soon emerge for the point when the caution flew
for a second time as Drake slowed on the front stretch. When the green
flew again Mars, sensing his preferred line was going away, would not
return to the high side but chose to run on the hub as Hedrick, Babb,
Shirley, Erb, and Moyer did likewise forming a single file line on the
hub. The field would stay this way for several laps until Babb would make
his move to reclaim second on the 34th circuit diving under Hedrick into
turn 3 and making the pass. When a caution with 11 to go slowed the
field, Babb decided it was all or nothing on the restart breaking from the
trend and charging to the rim into 1 and 2 challenging Mars for the lead
and bringing the capacity crowd to it's feet. Mars would maintain the
lead down the backstretch and Babb would try to cut across the track and
dive under him into 3 only to see his efforts thwarted again by the
determined veteran. Babb would continue this trend to no avail until the
42nd circuit when he switched up and let it all hang out as he rode the
rim in a wild fashion all the way around the track in a desperate attempt
to wrestle the lead from Mars. Babb who seemingly could do no wrong in
his record setting Summer National performance to this point finally saw
his fortunes turn sour as he got a little two high out of 4 on the 47th
circuit climbing the front stretch wall near the flag stand and riding it
to turn 1 ending his run. With this incident a 3 lap dash to the finish
would be in store. On the restart, Mars and Hedrick would pull away from
the competition but Hedrick could not find a path to the front as Mars
would take the checkers with Hedrick glued to his bumper. Shirley, Erb,
Moyer, Melvin, Hillard, VanWormer, Voight, and Steidinger would round out
the to 10. Mars commenting on his first full time Summer National run
said with a chuckle "It's been a long deal." He then continued "This
Summer National is probably the toughest deal I've ever done. I ran the
Hav-A-Tampa series (known as the now defunct Xtreme Dirt Car Series the
last several years) but I'm seeing a lot of new tracks and a lot of
smaller tracks on this deal. I would like to thank the fans for coming
out and supporting us to make it all possible."
Round 24 of the 29 event series will
be Sunday night at Tri-City Speedway near Granite City, IL on the 1/2 mile
track at the facility.
RACE
NOTES
John Provenzano was originally in
attendance at this event and was in line for the track provisional in the
9 car dash had he not been in the top 6 qualifiers but had to leave
abruptly when he was notified of a family emergency before the night's
action began.
Winfield, Ky native, Mike Marlar in
only his 3rd year of full time late model action caught the eye of Billy
Moyer. The result, Marlar now has some big time backing as he joins
Shannon Babb in the Moyer Motorsports stable and will finish out the 2005
version of the UMP Summer Nationals.
Local driver Joe Harlan started off
the night with mechanical difficulties missing qualifications as a
result. He would start dead last in the first heat battling his way up to
6th and would fight from his 5th starting spot in the last chance race to
come up just short of making the main event finishing 2nd in that race.
RESULTS
UMP LATE
MODELS
46 cars
Fast Time: 28 Dennis Erb Jr. 13.125
Dash
(9 laps 6 transfer)
1. 18 Shannon Babb (2)
2. 28 Jimmy Mars (1)
3. 28 Dennis Erb Jr. (3)
4. 21 Billy Moyer (4)
5. B12 Kevin Weaver (5)
6. 27 Rodney Melvin (7)
7. 96 Terry English (6)
8. 00 Randy Korte (9)
9. 4 Mike Mullvain (8)
Heat 1
(10 laps 3 transfer)
1. 96 Terry English (1)
2. 34 Steve Hillard (6)
3. 23 Patrick Sheltra (3)
4. 24 Ryan Unzicker (2)
5. 43 Jim Felker Jr. (7)
6. Z Joe Harlan (11)
7. 05 Gary Schalmo (9)
8. 15 Lisa Shickel (10)
9. K9 Mike Glynn (4) DNF
10. 00 Snooky Dehm (5)
11. T33 Tim O'Donnell (8)
Heat 2
1. 3S Brian Shirley (4)
2. 9 Eric Smith (2)
3. 9 Billy Drake (3)
4. S10 Jr Shickel (7)
5. 6 Mark Anderson (5)
6. 00 Randy Korte (1)
7. 35 Derek Chandler (6)
8. 27G RJ Gall (8)
9. 45 Don Hammer (9)
10. 4 Cody Bauman (10)
Heat 3
1. 4 Mike Mullvain (1)
2. 0 Richie Hedrick (2)
3. 30 Mark Voight (6)
4. 89 Daren Freidman (2)
5. 22 Chris Dick (9)
6. 7 Jay Sparks (4)
7. CJ1 Christian Rayburn (5)
8. 19 Chad Smith (10)
9. 72 Jay Fiene (8)
10. 99 Johnny Johnson (7)DNF
Heat 4
1. 55 Jeep VanWormer (1)
2. 5M Mike Marlar (2)
3. 36 Roger Long (3)
4. 1S Wes Steidinger (4)
5. 5 Jay Johnson (6)
6. 1W Donnie Walden (5)
7. 45 Gary May (7)
8. 10S George Scheffler (8)
9. 12 Jordan Bland (9)
Conci 1
(10 laps 1 transfer)
1. 89 Freidman (2)
2. Z Harlan (5)
3. 43 Felker (3)
4. 7 Sparks (6)
5. 22 Dick (4)
6. 19 Smith (10)
7. 05 Schalmo (7)
8. K9 Glynn (11)
9. CJ1 Rayburn (8)
10. 72 Fiene (12)
11. 15 Shickel (9) DNF
12. 00 Dehm (13)
13. 24 Unzicker (1)
14. 99 Johnson (14) DNS
Conci 2
1. 1S Steidinger (1)
2. 00 Korte (5)
3. S10 Shickel (1)
4. 1W Walden (6)
5. 45 May (8)
6. 5 Johnson (4)
7. 6 Anderson (3)
8. 27G Gall (9)
9. T33 O'Donnell (14)
10. 10S Scheffler (10)
11. 35 Chandler (7)
12. 12 Bland (12) DNF
13. 4 Bauman (13)
14. 45 Hammer (13)
Feature
(50 laps $10,000 to win)
1. 28 Mars (2)
2. 0 Hedrick (13)
3. 3S Shirley (8)
4. 28 Erb (3)
5. 21 Moyer (4)
6. 27 Melvin (6)
7. 34 Hillard (11)
8. 55 VanWormer (10)
9. 30 Voight (17)
10. 1S Steidinger (20)
11. 9 Smith (12)
12. 4 Mullvain (9)
13. 23 Sheltra (15)
14. 18 Babb (1) DNF
15. 5M Marlar (14)
16. 96 English (7)
17. 00 Korte (21)
18. B12 Weaver (5)
19. 9 Drake (16)
20. 89 Freidman (19)
21. 36 Long (18)
Lap
Leaders:
1-40 28 Mars
Cautions: 6
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