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Murphy sizzles to Kankakee win
by Zach Tasker
It was a hot and sweltering day in most of the Midwest and Friday night in Kankakee, Illinois was no different. Temperatures pushed triple digits before the sun went down, making for difficult conditions for drivers, crews and fans. The stars and cars of the Illini Racing Series braved through the heat though and once again put on a fantastic show. Sixteen midgets were on hand at the Kankakee county speedway. The field was split into two heat races with Lamont Critchett still using the momentum of his Rockford victory to score the win in heat race number 1 over SETRacing teammates Sean Murphy and Mike Gass. Series points leader Patrick Bruns would dominate heat number 2. This makes Bruns now undefeated through 4 heat races in 2012. Kurt Mayhew came home 2nd followed by Ray Seach. Seach, the 2011 Series champion, was filling in for the ill Derrick Gough, usual driver of the #11 car. After the Inversion the field of cars was ready for the 15 lap feature with rookie driver Mike Anderson starting on pole position. The fast drivers quickly made their way through the field. Seach would make his way to the front in impressive fashion in his return to the series. Seach would battle with Murphy for a majority of the feature. Seach stretched out to a few car length lead when a yellow flag for the spinning car of Lamont Critchett in turn 2 would bunch the field up. After multiple attempts and many laps running side by side Murphy would take his #5 car past the 11 with a slide job with just a few laps remaining and take the victory over 2nd place Seach. 3rd went to series points leader Patrick Bruns, Mike Gass and Kurt Mayhew rounded out the top 5.
The driver of the #5 SETRacing Twister/Ecotech talked about the great battle for the win afterwards "You know what I just got out front there and I was battling it out with the 11 car and I think he just couldn't keep it down on the bottom and I just kept on sliding it in and staying real calm and steady there and working the pass and I think he was a little bit better in turns 3 and 4 than me, he got me back a couple of times, but three is more than two so I ended up with the win. "
The Joliet native has been close to winning many times this year so it was a huge relief to finally make it to victory lane "We have had a lot of unfortunate luck. We have been in the hunt, Rockford was just a real tight pack up there but tonight we finally came through. I didn't think my first win(this season) was going to be on the dirt, but we will take it. I think we are third in points right now, I don't know how many points I am away from the guy in second but maybe we will have enough to pass into second place right behind Bruns."
Ray Seach enjoyed his return to the Illini Racing Series. Seach has been running a STARS national midget this season. The former champion had short notice before jumping into the #11 Manic Racing/A&G Motorsports/American Racer Hawk/Quad 4. "Derrick kind of had an illness or got sick or something today. So I got a call about two o clock when I was welding something up for a customers car and here I am. It definitely beats working. The cars are a lot different but its still a race car, you still have to drive it hard, I think we changed so much stuff after the heat race, and got the car working decent and after the car works good then you can drive the car a little more like you would a national car after its a little more predictable and consistent."
Seach was thinking what if after being so close to victory "I never saw him before the yellow and then he got on the inside of me right after the green flag and then I got back by him on the outside and I was staying up there for a little bit and tried getting down a little bit to take his line away but I messed up on the bottom and slid up and he got back inside me and got a good run off of two and took off a bit and didn't really pull away much but I didn't get a good run to get by him so we came up a little short but it was a good run."
The points leader of the series after four rounds is still the driver of the #83 Tin Cup RV Park/Advanced Financial/Cains Marine Welding/Mobil 1/Triple T Car Wash & Lube Beast/Focus. Patrick Bruns run of four straight heat race wins is no doubt very impressive. "It started off with another heat race win and getting another podium finish is definitely a good night. Especially the way the Illini Series does it with the invert you got to plan to start at the back and come forward every night. It got slick, it was pretty rough which I was surprised by how rough it was and then coming off of turn 4 there was quite a bit of moisture in the track and it seemed like the guys ahead of me that had a little bit more motor were able to get ahead and get away from me going down the straight away. I could catch up with them in 1 and 2 and down the back straight but coming off of 4 they would get away from me." Every driver had to deal with the extreme heat, Bruns was no different. " When I'm out there I don't even think about it, its when you are preparing to go out you try to get a lot of water. I worry about my guys more than anything because they are the ones working on the car."
Saturday July 14 the Illini Racing Series returns to Grundy County Speedway, scene of the season opener.