Open Wheel Wednesday Treats Fans to Great Dirt Track Racing
By: Anita Soltis
(Plymouth, IN) Dirt track fans were treated to three and even four-wide racing on the track at Plymouth Speedway in this week’s annual Open Wheel Wednesday event.
It was Kokomo, Indiana’s Shane Cottle who came away with the win in the Dickies Restaurant 600 Non-Wing Sprints event to start the evening of feature racing. He was the class of the field having started from the pole and leading all laps. Bradley Jameson, a Logansport, Indiana native, started right beside Cottle at the start and fell in behind him and that’s where he stayed for the rest of the feature. Lakeville, Indiana’s Eric Saunders snuck into the third and final podium spot after Dawson Stealy fell back a spot. A late-race caution bunched up the field, but the leaders remained on point.
Cottle, who ran the No. 57 usually driven by Chad Hartzell, had fun out front in the feature.
“These guys gave me a great car - a bad-fast car,” said Cottle. “It’s a lot of fun to come out here and run with these racers. I hope we put on a good show for the fans.”
Cottle attempted to make it two wins in one night, but he didn’t have the car to get by Cullman, Alabama’s Kevin Thomas, Jr. who dominated the field of 20+ OmniSource 410 Non-Wing Sprints. The real battle on the track was for the two other podium positions between Shane Cottle and Robert Ballou, who calls Westville, Indiana home. The two had been running all over the track trying to get track position. A red flag for CJ Leary, who flipped his sprint car out of turn one, set up a green-white-checkered finish to give the pair a chance to settle the battle. Ballou worked on Cottle for second, but didn’t have enough time to make the pass. Thomas, Jr. won the race with Cottle in second with Ballou trailing Cottle by less than 0.2 seconds for third.
“We had a Cadillac tonight,” smiled Kevin Thomas, Jr. “It was nice to stay out from and not have to pass any cars. It was a relief to run my own race. It was great!”
Athens Archery presented Thomas, Jr. with a bow in addition to his first place trophy. Team VW Audi in Merrillville was also a proud presenting sponsor of Wednesday night’s action.
The Playground of Power crew now prepares for six features plus fireworks Saturday night, sponsored by R&B Car Company. I-Mods will be included with the regular features of the Swan Lake Resort UMP Modifieds, Dickies Restaurant 600 Open Sprints, WTCA Super Streets, Walmart Thunder Stocks and Bane-Welker Cyber Stocks. Gates open at 4 p.m., hot laps start at 6 p.m. and racing is at 7 p.m. ET. Ticket and pit pass pricing can be found at
www.plymouthspeedway.net.
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About Plymouth Speedway:
Plymouth Speedway features a three-eighths (0.375) mile banked dirt oval owned by Ed Kennedy. Five different classes of racing are featured: UMP Modifieds, Non-wing 600 Sprints, Thunder Stocks, Cyber Stocks and Super Streets. Regular season races are scheduled in the months of April through August on Saturday nights with several special events. For information, visit
www.plymouthspeedway.net, follow Plymouth Speedway’s official Facebook page, @PlymouthSpeed on Twitter or email info@plymouthspeedway.net.
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