NASCAR Champs honored as Donahue wins Salute to 75

 

The start of the feature saw tight racing action as Brian Brown jumped to the opening lead from pole sitter Payton Lucas as Kyle Donahue, Jimmy Vanzandt, Brennon Willard, Steve Holt and JC Newell followed door to door while the evenings top 2 qualifiers, Mike Slone and Jake Griffin started the feature from the 12^th and 13^th positions. Lucas would pull even with Brown, but Brown carried the speed off turn two and pulled ahead by 2 cars. The top 6 began to pull away from the rest of the pack with side by side action as Vanzandt moved around Donahue briefly on lap 5 for the 3^rd spot. On lap 10, Lucas made a run around Brown to secure the top spot as now the top 10 were packed together while Donahue went back around Vanzandt for 3^rd. Defending event winner Brennon Willard surged forward to move into 3rd on lap 14 as Donahue was putting pressure on Lucas for the lead.  On the next lap, 15 year old Donahue took the lead as the top 10 were still packed together while Slone and Griffin had work to the 7^th and 9^th place spots. During this long green run, the top 4 of Donahue, Lucas, Willard, and I-44 point leader Newell started to break away as lap 18 saw Kansas City veteran charger Ronnie Hartford pull to the safety area and out of action with a flat tire. By lap 23, Slone and Griffin had moved to the 5^th and 6^th spot and were closing on the top 4. On lap 24 lapped traffic was just in front of the fast moving Donahue as Willard who had moved into 2nd on lap 20 was closing in quickly with Newell and Lucas in their shadows. The fast paced-tight action slowed on lap 32 as the first caution waved when early leader Brown and Vanzandt spun low in turn one. With that caution bunching the entire field even tighter, Donahue would find a fast moving Willard glued to his bumper on the restart, Donahue opened a 2 car advantage as Slone moved around Lucas to secure 4^th and closed in on Newell for 3^rd. Under green flag conditions Donahue couldn’t shake Willard as Newell was pressuring Willard for 2^nd place. On lap 36, Newell shot to the inside of Willard after several laps of trying to the move top side. As the top 5 drivers including Donahue, Newell, Willard, Slone and Griffin had pulled away from the pack, the action rose even higher on lap 38 as Slone moved around Willard for 3^rd and quickly closed on Newell for 2^nd. The 5 car pack had now become a 3 car race by lap 50 as young Donahue opened a 5 car length lead as Newell and Slone battled behind him. With green flag racing still the call, Slone moved into the 2^nd place spot around Newell on the 58^th circuit and began his run on Donahue as Willard and Griffin continued to race for 4^th. For the final 15 laps, Slone and Donahue stayed glued together as Slone was using his experience on the 2^nd year driver. Around the lap 65 mark, Slone in the Paul Jepsen ride was putting on heavy pressure and pulled even with Donahue as the duo rubbed side by side with Slone grabbing the top spot. Heading out of turn 4, Donahue was keeping the pressure heavy as Slone just scrapped the front stretch wall, it took Donahue a couple of laps before he took back the top spot. On circuit 71, Slone made another run on Donahue as Newell was starting to close ground again. Donahue kept the nose of the car straight and withstood Slone’s challenges during each of the final 3 laps to take his 2^nd win of the season and biggest of his young career with Slone a very close 2^nd followed by Newell, Griffin, Willard, defending track champion Kaleb Allison, early leader Lucas, Steve Holt on the lead lap as Scotty Allen completed the top 10. Heat race wins went to Brown and Griffin with Slone topping time trials with a lap of 14.56 seconds. Newell captured the 2015 track and NASCAR Whelen All American Series Missouri State Championship becoming the 3^rd different NASCAR Pro Late Model Championship in 3 years during the new NASCAR era.

 

Budweiser NASCAR Modified action saw former 3-time Modified Champion David Bates take advantage of leaders Rodrick Icenhower and Stephen Counterman making contact on lap 10 and hold on for his 4^th feature win of the season. Rodrick Icenhower grabbed the opening lead from pole sitter Chris Johnson as Ricky Icenhower and Counterman followed quickly. With Icenhower setting a very quick pace, Bates shot from the 8^th starting spot and moved into the lead pack by lap 3. After a very tough battle for 2^nd spot, Counterman who started the night in the 7^th starting spot, moved around Johnson on lap 4 as Bates was coming with him. Counterman and Bates began to close in on young Icenhower while newly crowned Champion Tim Swearengin moved around Johnson trying to join the lead pack. Action up front was tight as Roderick Icenhower was holding a very smooth tight line with Counterman glued to his bumper until Icenhower went for a spin in turn 4 on lap 10. Officials placed both Icenhower and Counterman at the rear as contact was deemed. This placed Bates in the top spot with Swearengin, Johnson, Ricky Icenhower, Joe Bunkers and Ronnie Hartford all battling in the pack.  Bates was able to pull away at the restart leaving a great race for 2^nd place between the pack as Counterman was starting to pick his way through after restarting 10^th.  By lap 13, Bates was maintaining a 5 car-length advantage as Swearengin, Johnson, Counterman, Ricky Icenhower and Hartford were swapping spots. Caution slowed the pace on lap 21 bringing the pack together even tighter. On the restart, Bates broke away again as Counterman was working on Swearengin for 2^nd spot. As Counterman made the pass, the question was does he have enough time to run down Bates that had no plans of slowing at all. The answer was not enough as Bates took the checkered followed by Counterman, Swearengin, Johnson and a fast moving Rodrick Icenhower in the top 5 as Swearengin takes home the 2015 NASCAR Whelen All American Series Lebanon I-44 Speedway Championship. Heats went to Rodrick Icenhower and Counterman.

 

In Sportsman action, 2012 Champion Little JC Newell took the opening lead and never looked back in grabbing his 9^th feature win of the season. 2015 point champion Big JC Newell gave chase to his grandson in different stages of the race, but it seemed as if Little JC had something left when a challenge would be mounted. Dayton Newell would cross the stripe in 3^rd spot followed by Justin Blake and Jimmy Fohn. JC Newell made it a clean sweep by grabbing the heat race win.

 

For Hoosier Tire Street Stock 2015 champion, Jordan Nisbett powered to the lead on lap 3 from Shawn Schmidt and Aaron Wilke in a three wide pass to gather his 8^th win of the season as the 15 lap feature went caution free with tight action throughout the field. Schmidt and Wilke kept the pack tight at the start with side by side racing up front. Nisbett and Les Mallard were slicing and dicing in the pack along with Michael Juergensen, Zack Morgan, George Buhr and Steve Shaw. When clearing the lead duo, Nisbett was trying to put some distance between him and the fast moving field. On lap 5, Mallard was flying high to the 2^nd place spot as Wilke and Morgan were putting on pressure. Nisbett opened the lead to over 5 cars as Mallard and Morgan were nose to tail on lap 7 while Juergensen and Buhr were right with them. On lap 9, Morgan moved into 2nd place as Juergensen followed passing Mallard. Nisbett took the checkered with Morgan, Juergensen, Buhr and Shaw completing the top 5 with all cars finishing on the lead lap. Heat race wins went to Buhr and Morgan.

 

The Coca-Cola Charger Championship was on the line as only 1 point separated Ben White and 2013 Champion Jimmy Poindexter. Following the heat race win, Poindexter was 4 points ahead. The feature would decide the title and these two didn’t disappoint anyone. Japheth Nisbett took the opening lead as White and Poindexter were side by side trying to find their way to the front. On lap 3, White made the quick power move around Nisbett as Poindexter followed while behind the top 3 were Nik Taylor, Jesse Poindexter and Jerry Ellis swapping spots. As the dynamic duo pulled away, Poindexter tried several times to get around White. While completing lap 8, with lapped traffic in front, White made a move to get around top side while Poindexter shot to the low side and beat White out of turn 2 with the top position. White made runs inside and out on every corner for the final 3 laps as they went door to door in the corners while Poindexter was doing all he could to hold on to the lead. Going into the final lap with the title up for grabs, White pulled even again as the duo rubbed sheet metal with Poindexter just nipping White for his 6^th win and the 2015 track championship. Following the leaders were early leader Nisbett, rookie driver Ellis and Taylor. Heats went to Nisbett and Poindexter.

 

The Staff and Management want to thank the many fans, drivers, and marketing partners for a very exciting and successful 2015 NASCAR Whelen All-American Series season. To keep up on the off-season announcements and 2016 information on Missouri’s only Active Asphalt and NASCAR sanctioned track, please visit the website at www.i44speedway.net and be sure to like us at Lebanon I-44 Speedway on Facebook .

I-44 Speedway PR