FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 24, 2011
Wood Wins Lucas Oil Sportsman Cup Delaware Opener
(Delaware, ON) - The Lucas Oil Sportsman Cup Series Presented by Tirecraft was on the track at Delaware Speedway Friday, May 20th for the Tirecraft 100, the first event of the 2011 campaign.
A field of 17 of the finest Late Model drivers in the province met for the opening round, and the night started with qualifying. Shawn McGlynn (#81) of Kitchener, turned the fastest lap. Following the ‘Fast Five’ draw, McGlynn ended up on the pole, with Derek Clark (#7) of Strathroy, beside him.
McGlynn led the Tirecraft 100 for the first 42 laps, until he raced Jay Doerr (#40) of London, too hard into turn one for the lead on a restart. This turned the lead over to Doerr, but on the ensuing restart Josh Wood (#66) of London, flexed his muscle.
Matt Robblee (#51) of Dorchester was also on the charge, as he was running in the top-three for much of the early going until a flat tire around the halfway point put him behind McGlynn racing through traffic.
Wood took the lead with a strong move on the outside as Doerr fell into a thick pack of traffic. After some contact, Doerr spun to bring out another yellow, and putting him to the back of the field.
McGlynn moved to second, getting by Kelly ‘The Crowd Pleaser’ Balson (#10) of Hampton, and attacked Wood, making contact with the leader on lap 92. Incredibly, Wood kept control of his car, while McGlynn went all the way around, bringing out another yellow and sending him to the back of the pack again, and putting Clark up to second for the final restart of the night with five to go. Robblee dove inside of Clark on the restart and wrestled second away before taking off after Wood. Robblee closed late, and after a little contact coming to the white flag ended up coming up on the short end of the stick with a second-place finish, while Wood captured his first career Delaware feature win.
Wood spoke about winning at Delaware, and what it meant to him, “It’s a real pleasure to win here at Delaware. I’ve been coming here since I was a kid with my dad. We raced here for four years and I’ve never won a feature at this place. We had a really good car all night, and at the end, I knew Matt was coming. We had a good race at the end for the win.”
Robblee, who finished second in last Friday night’s FT Garage Late Model talked about racing his way back to the front in the second half of the race, “Attrition strikes again. We had a gear that seemed to be tightening up, so we changed it after qualifying, and the one we put in wasn’t right. We needed a little more power off the corners.”
Clark held on for a career high third-place finish, with less than a dozen events under his belt, in what was the underdog story of the night. Derek explained, “Honestly, we were expecting to have a top-ten finish. We were off in practice and made some final adjustments before qualifying and the car came to life. I did my best to manage my tires through the event, and then we were stuck on the outside on almost every restart, but we overcame that to have good opening night to the season. McGlynn recovered in the closing laps, to finish fourth, while
Balson (#10) rounding out the top-five.
1. Wood, 2. Robblee, 3. Clark, 4. McGlynn, 5. Balson.
The next event for the Lucas Oil Sportsman Cup Series will be Saturday, June 25th on the ½-mile Mosport Speedway. The event will be part of a big stock car weekend at the facility, as the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series competes on the road course at Mosport that same weekend.
For more information on The Lucas Oil Sportsman Cup, Delaware Speedway, or Mosport Raceway, please visit
www.lucasoilsportsmancup.com,
www.delawarespeedway.com, or
www.mosport.com.
Release and photos by
www.maudsleymotorsports.com.
Linkback: https://www.canadianracingonline.com/smf/index.php?topic=13294.msg93178#msg93178
