SANDUSKY, Ohio — official release — Dave Shullick Jr., from North Ridgeville, Ohio, dominated the field in the 30 lap BioBased.US Midwest Supermodified Association feature at Sandusky Speedway in Sandusky, Ohio on Saturday night.
He was fast qualifier of the night in the blue #95 roadster nicknamed ‘Ice’ with a lap time of 14.184 seconds and would go on to claim the checkers.
ACME Racing teammates Trent Stephens and Danny Shirey would capture their respective heat races, with Shirey in the #49 Kasper Auto Group sponsored car winning the first ten lap heat and Stephens in the #19 winning the second.
Veteran open wheel racers Gene Lee Gibson and Kevin Feeney would pace the field to the green, with Feeney jumping out ahead of Gibson on the start. Gibson’s car would continue to plummet through the field. This would give Charlie Schultz in the Design Engineering Inc. sponsored #7 car, who started on the outside lane, a chance to pass five cars to take the lead on lap two.
Trent Stephens and Jim Paller in the #64 Precision Welding sponsored racer would collide on lap four, causing Shullick Jr. to spin to avoid the carnage. The Carquest sponsored #81 of Denny Fisher, the #19 of Stephens, the #36 Perfection Fabricators car of Jon Henes, and the #22 of Mike McVetta would go pitside. Stephens and Fisher were out for the remainder of the event, but Henes and McVetta would rejoin the field tail end of the lead lap.
Schultz, Feeney in the #63 car, Danny Shirey, Shullick, and Kyle Edwards in the #11 BioBased.US machine would be the top five for the restart.
“Chargin’ Charlie” would get a huge advantage on the restart over Kevin Feeney, who appeared to be down on horsepower compared to the bigger teams of the MSA as Shirey and Shullick would get around him on lap six for second and third. Shullick would make a power move around Shirey during the same lap for the second position, and it would pay off as the caution would come out the next lap for Feeney and Edwards colliding in turn two.
Feeney would be done for the night after this lap seven incident, as well as the #22 of “Hollywood” Mike McVetta in the “Ketchup ‘n’ Mustard Special” #22 Perfection Fabricators car. Henes would again go to the pits to try and fix colossal wing damage suffered to his hotrod earlier in the racing action, and restart tail in the dwindling field. This restart would see Schultz lead Shullick, Shirey, Edwards, and Jim Paller to the green.
Schultz would hold Shullick off on the start as Edwards passed Shirey for third and Paller would power around Shirey for fourth the following lap. Shullick would finally pass Schultz on lap fourteen and quickly began to check out on the field, however Schultz would get one last chance to try and maneuver around “Shoe II” and his rocket ship “Ice” as Edwards would get a right rear flat tire with nineteen laps in the books.
Edwards and Henes would go pitside to repair their vehicles and both would return to racing action at the tail end of the lead lap. The restart order would be Shullick, Schultz, Paller, Shirey, and Lesiecki.
Shullick would hold off Schultz on the start, and Edwards still had a tire rub on his machine, so he went pitside on lap 20. On lap 21, Lesiecki in the Outdoor Option sponsored #77 would pass Shirey for fourth. The final nine circuits saw only Gene Lee Gibson in the Joe and Crystal Gillingham owned #5 pull off with three laps to go with fuel pickup issues.
The finishing order for the event would be DJ Shullick, Charlie Schultz, Jim Paller, AJ Lesiecki, Danny Shirey, and Jon Henes.
In victory lane interviews, Shullick noted how good his car was.
“This car wasn’t 100% at either HyMiler race, because we missed on the stagger, but when Ice is set up right, it is nearly unbeatable”, commented Shullick.
Shullick, going into Sandusky, was coming off of a stellar weekend at Oswego Speedway in New York, setting a new overall track record at the historic five-eighths mile facility and winning the sixty lap International SuperModified Association race on a last lap, turn four pass over Mike Lichty.
With the feature win and fast time in qualifying, Shullick would take a top five MSA points position from Mike McVetta despite not attending two of the ten events contested so far this season.
Defending points champion and point leader Trent Stephens sits 23 points ahead of both Kyle Edwards and Charlie Schultz, who sit at a tie for second. Jon Henes maintains his fourth place position 68 points behind Stephens and Shullick rounds out the top five in points, sitting 132 points behind going into the championship deciding event at Sandusky Speedway on October 11th and 12th.
Logistically, one can only make up 85 points on any given night (50 for the win, 15 for fast time, and 20 show-up points), so only Edwards, Schultz, and Henes have any possibility of stealing Stephens’ crown, though Henes will be mathematically out of the race for the championship if Stephens so much as makes the tow to Sandusky Speedway for the Main Event XXVII weekend October 11-12th.
RESULTS: BioBased.US Midwest Supermodified Association; September 6, 2014; Sandusky Speedway
QUALIFYING: 1) 95-Dave Shullick Jr. 14.184
A-MAIN (30-laps): 1) 95-Dave Shullick Jr., 2) 7-Charlie Schultz, 3) 64-Jim Paller, 4) 77-AJ Lesiecki, 5) 49-Danny Shirey, 6) 36-Jon Henes, 7) 5-Gene Lee Gibson, 8) 11-Kyle Edwards, 9) 63-Kevin Feeney, 10) 22-Mike McVetta, 11) 19-Trent Stephens, 12) 81-Denny Fisher, 13) 92-Larry Lehnert