FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
By Mike Bennett
South Buxton Raceway (Aug 2, 2014) - The threat of severe weather was
around South Buxton Raceway earlier in the day Saturday. But no one saw
a tornado coming – especially not Keith Dempster and Glenn Styres. The
Ohsweken Speedway teammates were locked in a great battle for the lead
but were swept up by the “Tilbury Tornado” Kyle Patrick. Patrick used
the high side of the track and stormed his way past the leaders through
turns three and four on lap 17 and went on to pick up his second career
Southern Ontario Sprints feature win on his home track.
“It feels good, baby!” Patrick exclaimed after climbing out of his No.
33K machine.
“It’s been a while since I’ve been up here with the checkered flag in my
hands for a feature … it feels really, really good to do it here,” said
Patrick, whose only other SOS win at South Buxton came on June 18, 2005.
Patrick started in the sixth position and ran fifth for 10 laps until
finding a groove on the high side to get past both Brantford’s Mitch
Brown and Lefroy’s Warren Mahoney to move into third. Meanwhile,
Dempster and Styres battled door-to-door for the lead for several laps,
allowing Patrick to quickly close the gap to make it a three-car battle
for the lead. On lap 16, Patrick got a great run on the high side of the
backstretch and carried his momentum into turn three and blew past both
the second-place Styres and then the leader Dempster as they exited turn
four. The caution waved for the only time two laps later and after the
restart, Patrick drove away from the pack and was still pulling away
when the checkered flag waved seven laps later. “We’ve been getting
ready for this deal since last weekend,” said Patrick. He said he and
his father Bill had been talking all week about how he always runs well
at South Buxton but not quite good enough to win. “We’re good here, but
we just run the bottom of the race track and that turns into a
follow-the-leader-deal … you have to wait for luck. “(But) a quick race
like this on a tight track, you have to make your own luck. “We knew if
we were going to get this done, we’d have to do it on the high side,”
Patrick said.
Dempster held on to finish second over Styres, who won the July 5
feature at South Buxton. Brantford’s Mitch Brown, who entered the night
with a three-point lead over Styres, finished fourth while Port
Stanley’s Chris Durand rounded out the top five. Patrick, the 2003 SOS
rookie of the year, only runs a handful of races in the series. He
finished fourth at Ohsweken and South Buxton on back-to-back nights July
4 and 5 in his only other SOS appearances this season. He runs the
weekly Corr-Pak series at Ohsweken, where he is fourth in points with
three heat race wins and a ‘B’ main victory along with a pair of seconds
in ‘A’ mains.“If we’re going to get a win this year, I couldn’t be
happier that we’re doing it in front of this crowd at our home track,”
Patrick said. “We’ve got a lot of family and friends here … we’re
probably gonna burn this place down tonight!”
Pit Stops
- A total of 14 race teams made the second trip to South Buxton, as the
threat of rain kept other drivers at home. Chris Jones, of Carrying
Place, was fifth in the standings but did not make the trip south after
his car was damaged in a race at Brockville last week. Jones won last
August’s race when the SOS returned to South Buxton after a three-year
absence.
- While it rained throughout the day all around the region, South Buxton
only received a light 15-minute shower around 1 p.m.
- Patrick’s win was the fourth by a non-SOS regular this season as
Hamilton’s Mike Kruchka and Welland’s Chris Steele won the Humberstone
races and Steve Collins, of Belfast, N.Y., won at Ohsweken.
- Brown is three-for-three at Brighton, where the final three SOS dates
will be run (Aug. 9, 30 and 31) while Styres’ win at South Buxton in
July was his first at the track.
- Brown and Styres won the heat races, while Patrick was second to Brown
in his heat.
- South Buxton’s other ‘hometown’ driver Adam ‘Batman’ West finished
ninth in the feature after a fifth-place finish in his heat.
- Patrick joins West as the only active drivers with two SOS wins at
South Buxton. Mahoney, Jones and Styres have one win each while Dempster
has a Northern Summer Nationals victory.
- Mike Ling is the all-time South Buxton SOS winner with five victories,
all coming in 1997-98.
- Patrick dedicated the win to a long-time race fan from Tilbury, Dave
St. Louis, who died earlier this year. “I know he was watching down and
probably had a hand moving us around out here,” Patrick said.
Entries
0 Glenn Styres – Ohsweken, ON
2 Brad Lodge – Stouffville, ON
5 Keith Dempster – Alton, ON
7m Justin Martin – St. Thomas, ON
10 Bob Crawford – Sutton, ON
10b Mitch Brown – Brantford, ON
15 Mike Ferrell – London, ON
25 Warren Mahoney – Lefroy, ON
30 Adam West - Ridgetown, ON
33k Kyle Patrick - Tilbury, ON
43 Scott Sherk - Port Colborne, ON
66 Frank Baranowski – Hamilton, ON
67 Chris Durand – Port Stanley, ON
71s Shawn Sliter – Port Colborne, ON
Heat #1 Results (8 laps)
1. 0 Styres (3)
2. 66 Baranowski (1)
3. 5 Dempster (4)
4. 67 Durand (2)
5. 7m Martin (6)
6. 71s Sliter (5)
7. 15 Ferrell (7)
Heat #2 Results (8 laps)
1. 10b Brown (1)
2. 33k Patrick (3)
3. 25 Mahoney (4)
4. 43 Sherk (2)
5. 30 West (6)
6. 2 Lodge (5)
7. 10 Crawford (7)
A-Main Results (25 Laps)
1. 33k Kyle Patrick (6)
2. 5 Keith Dempster (2)
3. 0 Glenn Styres (3)
4. 10b Mitch Brown (5)
5. 67 Chris Durand (7)
6. 71s Shawn Sliter (11)
7. 25 Warren Mahoney (1)
8. 7m Justin Martin (9)
9. 30 Adam West (10)
10. 2 Brad Lodge (12)
11. 10 Bob Crawford (14)
12. 66 Frank Baranowski (4)
13. 15 Mike Ferrell (13)
14. 43 Scott Sherk (
The Southern Ontario Sprints would like to thank their 2014 partners:
Speedway Motors, Wiseco Pistons, Klotz Synthetic Lubricants, The
National Sprint Car Hall of Fame and Museum, ImageFactor.ca, Kreitz Oval
Track Parts, Canadian Motorsports Expo, Sanderson’s Automotive and OnDirt.ca
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