[Jerry Shaw]

I didn't go to Haubstadt tonight, because I just didn't see anybody having anything for Brady Short, since Cummins and The Madman were out East. I'm glad I went to LPS. It ended up being a really good race. Chris Gurley took off to an early lead and led for the first 13 laps or so. The best early battle was for second, between AJ Hopkins and Max McGhee. Hopkins was in second to start off and McGhee took that away from him with a well executed slider in turn 4. At the other end of the track, Hopkins tried the same thing and made contact, forcing McGhee up into the top of the turn. Gurley had a decent size lead, but Hopkins started to reel him in. At the same time, McGhee, who had lost a lot of ground, had mounted a comeback and was catching Hopkins faster than he was catching the leader. Jerry Coons was looming in 4th. There was a yellow with 7 to go. The restart order was Gurley, Hopkins, McGhee and Coons. McGhee had been the fastest car on the track before the yellow, so he was the obvious one to keep your eye on. Hopkins quickly took the lead after the green and began to check out on the field.. Gurley started to fade. With less than 5 laps to go, Jerry Coons took second away from Max McGhee and those two went at it for the remainder of the race, with McGhee using some bigtime aggression to grab the runnerup spot back. He held onto second, as Hopkins won comfortably.

On a side note, why was the feature only 20 laps? Who runs a 20 lap sprint car feature?

Jerry