Alan Johnson nips Bill Gill in photo finish
LAFARGEVILLE, NY: It just wasn’t in the cards for the Dealmaker Auto Group Teo Pro car of Bill Gill of Plessis, NY as the race-long leader made a last lap mistake that cost him a victory in the Sunoco Race Fuels 358 Super DIRT Series event at the Can Am Motorsports Park. The win went to one of DIRT’s all-time feature winners, Alan Johnson as he out dragged Gill to the checkered flag to claim victory by the narrowest of margins, .019 seconds. Costing Gill the win was his drifting wide on the last turn of the last lap giving Johnson just enough room to get inside of him and then getting to the finish line just ahead of Gill.
A solid field of 42 cars signed in for the night’s racing. Four heats and two consies narrowed the starting field down to 31 cars lead by Racin Jason Barney and Gill. The race started off bad for Danny O’Brien, Steve Hulsizer, Gus Schmidt and Lee Gill as they got tangled up in the first turn on the original start. When the green came out for a complete restart, Alex Hoag looped his car in turn four bringing out another quick yellow. When the green came out, it was Gill taking the lead over Barney with Steve Pain, Matt Sheppard and Ryan Baye looking for the lead. In the early laps, Gill built up a comfortable lead with the battle on for positions in the rest of the field. A quarter of the way through, the running order was: Gill, Paine, Barney, Sheppard, Danny Johnson, Alan Johnson, Ryan Baye, Todd Burley and Frankie Caprara. The caution came out on the 27th lap for Andrew Howard, a Can Am Sportsman driver, who qualified his car into the feature but had to retire to the pits. The race went green until lap 43 when Timmy McCreadie, making a return to his former Saturday night stop, got hit from behind and looped his Roger Heroux ride. Timmy headed for the pits.
At the halfway mark, the leader board was composed of Gill, Alan Johnson, Barney, Paine, Danny Johnson, Brett Hearn, Caprara, Burley and Pete Bicknell. At this point, Steve Paine started to fade from his third place spot and fell to sixth. The last half of the race was run pretty much caution free with Gill maintaining control of the race, but with the veteran Alan Johnson, reunited with Mike Maroney with a new Bicknell, just biding his time looking for any slipup by the defending Can Am track champ. It took just one mistake by Gill to let the DIRT legend make his move, and Gill saw an almost sure victory slip through his fingers. Just a heart breaking loss for Gill and another victory for AJ Slideways. Jason Barney had a strong race and nailed down a fine third place finished followed by the Doctor, Danny Johnson, with Brett Hearn, Steve Paine, Frankie Caprara, Pete Bicknell, Todd Burley and Pat Ward rounding out the top ten.
It was another exciting Pure Stock feature as 24 cars took the green of Starter Steve Rickett. This class has week in and week out provided some of the best racing at Can Am, and this feature would be no different. The racetrack was dry slick and there was plenty of three and four wide racing all through the field. The early leader was Scott Castor, who has been running up front all season, followed by Henry Chant, Steve Gilmore and Ricky Paige. Paige took the lead on the 5th lap and was running strong. At the crossed flags, it was Paige, Dave Mannise, Castor, Chant and Fran Bryant as the top five. Although Paige took the checkered flags claiming his apparent first win of the season, he was later penalized to last in post race inspection giving the win once again to Dave Mannise, his 13th of the season, with Castor moved up to second followed by Bryant, Gilmore and Chant.
The last feature of the evening belonged to the IMCA mods. An excellent 24-car field took to the track for their main event. Invader Travis Stevens from Knox, NY, a Fonda regular, raced out to the early lead followed by Brandon Burchell and Rob Keller. There was a great battle for second among six cars and by the halfway flags the running order was Stevens, Larry Bezner, Erv Miller, Mike Adderley, Billy Dunn, Keller and George Catanzano. Travis went on to record the win with young Mike Adderley with another good run second with the veteran Larry Bezner third, Erv Miller fourth and Billy Dunn rounding out the top five.
358 Mods 100 laps: ALAN JOHNSON, Bill Gill, Jason Barney, Brett Hearn, Danny Johnson, Steve Paine, Frankie Caprara, Pete Bicknell, Todd Burley, Pat Ward, Matt Sheppard, Jim LaRock, Ryan Baye, Mitch Gibbs, Danny O’Brien, Billy Wilcox, Gus Schmidt, Jeff Sykes, Ben Tucker, Mike Ward, Vic Coffey, Pierre Dagenais, Lee Gill, Wayne Reutimann, Jr., Vince Quenneville, Jr., Alex Hoag, Tim McCreadie, Roger Phelps, Andy Howard, Tim Fuller, Steve Hulsizer.
Pure Stocks: DAVE MANNISE, Scott Castor, Fran Bryant, Steve Gilmore, Henry Chant, Don Scales, Dana Aikins, Jason Gilmore, Kevin Duffany, Shane Ray, Kim Mallette, Joe Combs, Keith Rabetoy, Eric Farrell, Charles Duffany, John Eiss, Rob Whipple, Kurt Lillie, Mark Barker, Mark Webb, Ricky Paige. DNS: Les Sanford, Brian Holder, Jeff Shannon.
IMCA: TRAVIS STEVENS, Mike Adderley, Larry Bezner, Erv Miller, Billy Dunn, Rob Keller, George Catanzano, Brian House, Jake Rabetoy, Kevin Buff, Brandon Burchell, Ken Klinkowsky, Neil Edgar, Steve Hough, Bentley Aiken, Rick Dusckas, Todd Goldsheim, Bill Anderson, John Mason, Brian Copp, Bill Eisele, Chris Taylor, Sean Lias, Terry Gardner, Jerry Fobare.