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HAUBSTADT, IN -RIS- Dave Darland had
a simple problem following his win in the seventh round of Indiana
Sprint Week at Bloomington. He needed to finish 13th or better at
the final race at Haubstadt. For Darland that would be a unusually
bad night.
After qualifying 13th and running in the fourth and final transfer
spot in his heat his trouble began as Ricky Stenhouse took that
position from him on the last lap. That meant he had to finish in
the top six in a talent loaded B feature to even get into the main
event. Twenty drivers started the B main which included Jerry Coons
Jr., Daron Clayton, Shane Cottle, Dustin Morgan, Mat Neely, Bill
Rose, Jimmy Light and Brad Short, all past feature winners. Darland
started ninth and was running in fifth for most of the race. Then
Kyle Robbins took fifth from him on the tenth of twelve laps. That
was no problem until the final lap when Kyle Wissmiller took sixth
place. Chris Windom and Shane Hollingsworth both flipped during the
B.
Just as had happened to Stanbrough the night before Dave Darland was
left out of the starting field for the feature race. Fortunately
Darland had enough points to claim a provisional starting position
and was gridded 24th.
At the front of the grid was Chad Boespflug and Ricky Stenhouse. Row
two held Dustin Morgan and Shane Cottle. The third Row was Daron
Clayton and Jerry Coons Jr. Stanbrough started eighth and Mat Neely
ninth. Levi Jones, who was second in points one ahead Stanbrough was
in 16th position.
Stenhouse lead from the start with Boespflug second followed by
Morgan and Clayton. They ran that way until the fifth lap when three
cars collided and came to rest at the exit of turn two. They were
Robert Ballou, Brady Bacon and Kyle Wissmiller. Wissmiller and Bacon
both flipped. That brought out the red flag. Hud Cone and Jess
Hockett got together and Neil Shepherd and Kevin Swindell were
caught up by them and collided on the front straight, both flipping.
The race was stopped again.
Darland was the beneficiary of this because the cars involved in the
accidents were all in front of him. He had moved to 14th place,
gaining five spots through others accidents. The fifth lap was
finally finished and another accident on lap seven brought out a
caution and put back Davy Pombo, Hud Cone and Jerry Coons Jr.
Darland now sat in twelfth place.
It seemed that the race would never make any progress but then it
took off. The last 24 laps were run without interruption. Clayton
took second from Boespflug on lap eight and was soon at Stenhouse's
heals. Boespflug was able to hold off Morgan and Stanbrough for
third place. The moment of truth came on lap 23 then Clayton took
the lead from Stenhouse.
Darland finished 11th which was good enough to give him the Sprint
Week title by 18 points over Jon Stanbrough. Stanbrough finished
fourth in the race and second in the Sprint Week points with 409.
Levi Jones had led Stanbrough by one point at the start of the night
and ended up third overall with 403 points a seventh place finish in
the nights race.
"We weren't very satisfied with our effort tonight on the
track. We did get what we came for though. That much was good."
Said Darland after the finish.
Some interesting notes about Daron Clayton's night and his Sprint
Week. He had to come from the B main, which he won, after flipping
in his heat. During the 2007 Indiana Sprint Week Daron drove for
three teams and won for two of them.
The fast qualifier for the night was Jerry Coons Jr. who turned in a
11.912 second lap. The track record is 12.644 seconds and is held by
Levi Jones. The heat winners were John Memmer, Levi Jones, Hud Cone
and Cole Whitt. The consy winner was Danny Holtsclaw.
Report Courtesy motorsportsforum.com
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