Mark Sammut put a couple of wheels in the grass on Sunday afternoon, taking the lead with just a handful of laps left at one of his home tracks to claim his first career ISMA feature win. It was the perfect homecoming for the London, ON driver, who cut his open wheel teeth on the much Ontario based Can-Am TQ Midget trail before leaving for the greener pastures of the travelling ISMA road show 11 years ago, as he returned to the 5/8th-mile oval for win number one.
It wasn’t a good afternoon to be a leader early at Cayuga Speedway on Sunday during the 50-lap main event for the IMSA Super Modifieds. The first pair of drivers that got to the front both fell by the wayside in the feature.
Vern Romanoski was the first pacesetter to be bit, as his green #5 slowed down the backstretch early in the event from the point. This turned command over to Michael Barnes in the yellow #70, who had opened up a four second cushion on second-place Ben Seitz when the events first yellow flew on lap 15.
Barnes would pull his car to pit road during that caution, calling it an afternoon, and turning command over to Seitz. The yellow would also see contenders Chris Perley and Russ Wood give up track position to head to pit road for adjustments. Wood spoke about heading to pit road, “We were tight early in the day, and then got really loose in the feature, everybody was. When I saw Perley come to the pits, I knew we had to as well. We moved the wing back to try and tighten the car up.” Perley would fight back to finish fourth, while Wood would up sixth.
Seitz seemed like he could have control of his own destiny and his first career ISMA feature win, but it was a local boy that was making his way through the field and would have the last word in the finish.
Mark Sammut started 10th in the 15-car field and moved to fifth by the time that first yellow flew. Immediately after the green went back in the air, Sammut started to work Dave McKnight Jr., and took the spot on lap 20, before setting his sights on second-place runner Jeff Holbrook. He reeled in Holbrook, made short work of the #35, but was faced with a one second deficiet to Seitz.
Sammut closed up a couple tenths of a second a lap, and found the back of Seitz car with about 15 laps to go. He struggled to find a way around the #88 machine, but with 10 laps to go, Seitz slipped up the track and Sammut saw his chance. “He [Seitz] was running a perfect line when I got to him, and not giving up the bottom,” explained Sammut. “I couldn’t get a run on him coming out of the corners, and then he made a little slip up the track in the middle of three and four, and I said to myself, ‘I have to go now’!”
Sammut would race up the inside of Seitz heading into turn one when Ben forced him low going in the corner. Sammut touched the dirt on the infield and raised a cloud of dust, but admitted afterwards it wasn’t as bad as it looked. “He gave me lots of room when I got down there, and I didn’t even know I went off the track until everyone told me after. If I did get down there, it wasn’t by more than a couple of inches.”
Mark continued with the pass, and held on for the final 10 laps to claim is first career ISMA feature win. “We’ve won some other shows before, but never an ISMA race, and we’ve been at it for 11 years now. The first is always the best, and to get that first at Cayuga is pretty special. We have all our friends and sponsors here watching, and basically there is nothing like winning at home.”
Seitz also chimed in on the battle up front after holding on for second, “I was trying to hold a tight line, and I didn’t know Mark was behind me until I saw his right front up beside me, but he raced me clean. Our car was really good, and we’re happy with second, but would have rather ended up first.”
Jeff Holbrook finished third, while another Canadian was able to crack the top-five, with Dave McKnight finishing fifth.
The event saw just 15 cars in attendance, with two factors playing into the low car count. First off, U.S. Immigration has been tightening up on passports, which likely scared a number of teams off, and was responsible for just 11 Auto Value Super Sprints at Delaware a month ago. The other factor was a winged Super show at Oswego the night before. Seitz was also at Oswego and said, “There were a lot of cars wrecked last night, and we were in an accident, but luckily it wasn’t too bad that we couldn’t race today. We also didn’t leave Oswego until about two in the morning, and while I can’t speak for all the teams, that could have something to do with it. We came right here after the show last night.”
The Super Modifieds are back in action later this month at Sandusky Speedway in Sandusky, OH for a doubleheader on the 24th and 25th, but will return to action in Canada on August seventh and eighth at Delaware Speedway.
http://img25.imageshack.us/gal.php?g=ismacayugajuly122009453.jpgNote - when I originally posted this article, I had some mistakes on the final finishing order. Between the Cayuga scoreboard not working, a long green flag run at the end of the event, and ISMA not posting results online until this morning, I had a couple of guys our of order outside the top-three, and have corrected the article.
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