O’BRIEN TAKES FEATURE AT CORNWALL
Mother Nature was kind to Cornwall Motor Speedway tonight as Danny O’Brien took the checkered flag in the Ontario/Quebec Invitational modified feature. The Kingston, Ontario driver started the 24-car field in 14th and quickly moved into the top 10. By lap 8, O’Brien was driving 3rd behind the #11 of Chris Jones and the #57C of Kevin Fetterly. Jones was running well and pulling away from the rest of the field until lap 22 when Dan Jalbert looped in turn 1 just as the frontrunners were getting into lapped traffic. That forced Jones to pull into the infield, to the inside of Jalbert. Fetterly and O’Brien went to the highside to take over the top two spots. Fetterly finished 2nd with Jones holding on to come in 3rd. Alexandria, Ontario’s Laurent Ladouceur ran a solid race and finished 4th. Another Kingston driver, Mark Hitchcock rounded out the top 5. The win gives Danny O’Brien two feature wins this season at Cornwall Motor Speedway. He’s the only driver to accomplish that this season. In the modified Dash for Cash, the top 5 drivers from Cornwall, Edelweiss, Drummondville, Granby and Brockville took part in the Ontario/Quebec Challenge and veteran driver Laurent Ladouceur won the $500 1st prize. Cornwall driver, Brian McDonald wasn’t too far behind Ladouceur to finish 2nd and collect the $300 2nd prize. McDonald and Ladouceur swapped positions half a dozen times before Ladouceur pulled out the victory. In all, there were 15 drivers in the race. Lee Ladouceur, Laurent’s son, won his 2nd late model feature of the season with a thrilling finish ahead of Billy King from Akwesasne. Stephane Lebrun, from Gatineau, Quebec came in 3rd. Rounding out the top five were Cliff Merpaw Jr. and Marc Therrien. The duke stock feature was won by Cornwall driver Robin Laframboise. Kees Van Winden, from Moorewood took the rookie stock feature.
On Sunday, July 30th, a revamped race night will mean a treat to DIRT racing fans. With the series of rain outs that recently hit Cornwall Motor Speedway, the reshuffling of events continues. The new schedule includes double features and the ever popular demolition derby. The double features stem from the features that Mother Nature wouldn’t let track officials get in on July 2nd. The originally scheduled Powder Puff race has been postponed until Sunday, August 13th and will now be a part of the Race for the Children night.
A note to Big Block racing fans…the show scheduled for Cornwall has been cancelled by D.I.R.T. Motorsports. Cornwall is one of four DIRT ovals forced to cancel the race due to inclement weather. Fans who purchased advance tickets for the race originally scheduled for July 9th can be exchanged for the September 3rd Jiffy 100. Tickets for that night’s racing action and a $5 refund will be given to all fans who bought advance tickets for the Big Block Super DIRT show.