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The Doctor makes another June house call at Brockville




BROCKVILLE-Danny Johnson likes to visit Brockville in June. The driver nicknamed the Doctor performed his usual brand of surgery on Tuesday night at the Brockville Ontario Speedway defending his Coca Cola Classic 100 title as the Sunoco Super DIRT Series paid it’s first of two visits to the fast quarter mile oval.

Johnson drew an outside pole starting position and led off the drop of the flag ripping off his fastest lap of the entire race on the first lap. However, brother Alan Johnson had something to say about the evening as well. Johnson worked his way through the field quickly and took over the top spot on lap 13.

The first 38 lap flew by under green with Alan leaping out to four to five carlength leads over Danny. Steve Paine who started back in 16th spot had begun his trip to the front with Brockville track champ Lee Gill in tow. A couple of mid race cautions slowed the field a bit, however the final 52 laps would be run under green.

Danny’s decision to lay back a little bit began to pay off as the laps continued to tick off. He finally caught Alan in traffic again on lap 71 and took over the lead for good. Alan would get close one more time as the lapping of cars gave the Doctor some anxious moments, but he didn’t have fresh enough rubber to pull back by winning by less than a second at the checkered flag. Alan was second followed by Paine who swapped 3rd spot back and forth with Gill for the last 30 laps of the race. The BOS regular settled for fourth with Pat Ward a strong fifth.

Rookie Matt Sheppard, pole sitter Jeff Sykes, Vic Coffey, Frankie Caprara and top Canadian Danny O Brien rounded out the top 10 in the race that was run start to finish in under 39 minutes. Bill Gill had set fast time in qualifying for the 100 lap event turning the quarter mile in 15.6 seconds. The highlight of the night for local fans was seeing Brockville regulars Stephane LaFrance, Gill and Chico Dingwall all win their respective heat races while Todd Stewart grabbed the consi win.

The Pro Stocks ran the second event in the Mr. Radiator series for 2001. It looked like Randy Earl would lead all 50 laps, however Marc Therrien had other ideas. Therrien took the lead with just 3 laps remaining in the caution filled race shocking the Brockville points leader and defending series champ. Earl settled for his second straight second place finish in the Mr. Radiator series with Daryl Steele, Billy King and Ron Morin rounding out the fast five.

Kees VanWinden upped his winning streak to four straight in the Rookie class taking the 10 lap event. Danielle Legault was second with Don Hall recovering from an early incident to take third spot. Dan Dybala of Smiths Falls was not injured when his four cylinder machine rolled between turns 1 and 2 late in the race.

Brockville Ontario Speedway now prepares for Proctor and Gamble Fan Appreciation Night on Friday, June 29th. Fans can get into the speedway at a rate of 20 dollars a car load. In addition, the Tide number 32 driven by NASCAR’s Ricky Craven will be on hand for fans to have a look at. The green flag drops at 7:30

MODIFIED COCA COLA 100: 1. DANNY JOHNSON Rochester NY 2. Alan Johnson Phelps NY 3. Steve Paine Waterloo NY 4. Lee Gill Lefargeville NY 5. Pat Ward Genoa NY 6. Matt Sheppard Waterloo NY 7. Jeff Sykes Edwards NY 8. Vic Coffey Liecester NY 9. Frankie Caprara Watertown NY 10. Danny O Brien Kingston 11. Brett Hearn Sussex NJ 12. Alex Hoag Bath NY 13. Todd Burley Spencerport NY 14. Stephane LaFrance Brockville 15. Todd Stewart Kingston 16. Gus Schmidt Liverpool NY 17. Bill Gill Plessis NY 18. Ben Tucker Redwood NY 19. Ryan Baye Constantia NY 20. Vince Quenneville Middlebury VT 21. Dan Jalbert Cornwall 22. Billy Cook Hogansburg NY 23. Kevin Fetterly Massena NY 24. Paul Pekkonen Brockville 25. Chris Herbison Brockville 26. Brian MacDonald Cornwall 27. Pete Bicknell St. Catherines 28. Chico Dingwall Brockville 29. Mark Hitchcock Kingston 30. Joel Doiron Cornwall 31. Sam Vanderlinden Athens

PRO STOCK MR. RADIATOR 50: 1. MARC THERRIEN Alexandria 2. Randy Earl Brockville 3. Daryl Steele Renfrew 4. Billy King Hogansburg NY 5. Ron Morin Cornwall 6. Todd Fletcher Renfrew 7. Eric Gauvreau Cantley QC

ROOKIE 10 LAPS: 1. KEES VANWINDEN Morewood 2. Danielle Legault Cornwall 3. Don Hall Athens 4. Roch Aubin Alexandria 5. Joseph Banks Portland