[racebum]

BRUNS PICKS UP THIRD FEATURE WIN OF SEASON
By Zach Tasker
It has become a familiar sight in the 2012 Illini Racing Series season-Patrick Bruns in Victory lane, and it happened again Saturday night at Rockford Speedway. The Champaign racer picked up his third win of the year stretching his points lead over Sean Murphy. The 25 lap feature started with 17 cars all following the front row of Loran Critchett Jr. and Brian Dobis. Bruns quickly asserted himself to the lead with Lamont Critchett in tow. Derrick Gough and Murphy also joined the lead pack as all drivers were battling for position. As Bruns was coming to lap the #8 car of Jason Allen with just ten laps remaining, Allens car suffered a loose oil line causing him to spin right in front of the leader. Fantastic driving by everyone prevented any collision. Right as the field was coming to take the green flag after the clean up the second placed #77 car of Critchett pulled in to the pit area with motor problems. That moved the #5 of Murphy into second but due to all of the oil dry put onto the track there was no way around Bruns. The driver of the #83 Tin Cup RV Park/Advanced Financial/Cains Marine Welding/Mobil 1/Triple T Car Wash & Lube Beast/Focus was relieved to bring home another trophy "Tonight was a pretty good night, we amazingly put down a real quick lap in qualifying. We usually aren't known for good qualifying runs but somehow we put down a really good lap. We had a real tough heat race and tonight in the feature it just kind of came to us and after the caution with the oil spill we seemed to be working pretty good." Bruns knew how close he was to losing the race "We almost bit the big one there when the 8 car (Allen) blew the oil line off it and dumped all the oil on track, he and I both went sliding, we just did clear him and we managed to keep it off the wall and bring it in victory lane. "
Murphy, in the #5 SETRacing Twister/Ecotec bounced back with a runner up finish after a disappointing race at Grundy County Speedway one week ago " I had a quick car, I got him (Bruns) on the inside a couple times but I didn't quite have it coming off the corner. I thought I did one time, but after that oil dry went down, he kind of changed his line and I was anticipating a bit where he was going to run, I think I got a little bit on top of him, it really took away the outside groove and it kind of turned into a one groove track. It almost seemed like the best line to run was directly in the oil dry, but there was no grip out there. "
Rounding out the podium was Derrick Gough who had another solid run in the #11 Manic Racing/A&G Motorsports/American Racer Hawk/Quad 4. He was just a few car lengths behind the lead duo when the checkered flag flew. "This year has been good, its been very similar to my rookie season, we have been very consistent but I'm still waiting on that first win."
Qualifying started the action for the night with Murphy posting the fastest time at a 13.778. Mike Gass and Brian Dobis were the two heat race winners.
The next event for the Illini Racing Series will be the Harry Turner Classic at the Sycamore Speedway on the 1/2 mile. More information about this very special event will be released in the coming days.