O’BRIEN WINS TRACK CHAMPIONSHIP WITH 5TH FEATURE WIN
Danny O’Brien unofficially won his 3rd straight Cornwall Motor Speedway Modified Championship in style. The Kingston, Ontario driver clinched the championship by winning his 5th feature of the season. It’s unofficial only because there’s one more race (Jiffy 100) at Cornwall, but all drivers that take one lap of green, either on hot lap, heat or feature, automatically receive 60 points. “My crew deserve the credit for setting me up week after week,” said O’Brien. “Lady luck was also on our side all year and you couldn’t ask for better.” O’Brien gained the lead by going high-side on Joel Doiron (Alexandria, Ontario) coming out of turn four on lap 18. O’Brien’s 17D and Doiron’s 40J bumped as O’Brien came within a few feet of the wall on the front stretch. Both cars regained their composure and held on to finish first and 2nd, respectively. Behind Doiron was Iroquois, Ontario driver Bill Mullin. Laurent Ladouceur (Alexandria, Ontario) finished 4th with Chico Dingwall (Brockville, Ontario) rounding out the top 5. As for the overall points, Ladouceur finished 100 points behind O’Brien but it was good enough for 2nd (574 to 474). Dave Heaslip came in 3rd (451 pts). Mark Hitchcock, from Kingston finished 4th (410 pts) while Doiron finished 1 point ahead of Kevin Fetterly (Massena, New York) for 5th.
Seventeen year old Mitch Jock won his first ever Late Model feature at Cornwall. The thrilling win didn’t come easy as the Akwesasne driver had to fend off points leader Marc Therrien for most of the race. The Alexandria driver in the 17 car finished 2nd. Jock just graduated from Rookie Stock and had a run of bad luck earlier this season. Jock’s finishes have been getting better over the last month as both he and his crew become very familiar with the Late Model set up. Stephane Lebrun, from Gatineau, Quebec finished the feature 3rd. Fourth place went to Darryl Steele (Renfrew, Ontario) while Cliff Merpaw Jr was able to hang on to 5th.
In the Duke race, it took Stephane Phillipe almost a year but he found his way to the winner’s circle. Phillipe finished just ahead of points leader Stephane Lemire. Phillipe’s last trip to victory lane was September 5th, the final race of the season in 1999. Rounding out the top 3 was Tyler Sommers.
The Rookie race was won by Kees Van Winden. It’s the 2nd feature win in a row, 4th overall, for the driver from Moorewood, Ontario. Kurtis McPhee came in 2nd, just ahead of Chris Fontaine.
Cornwall Motor Speedway’s official racing season ends with the Jiffy 100 Super DIRT Series race on Sunday, September 3rd. A 100-lap feature for the Modifieds will be complemented by full features in the Late Model, Duke and Rookie stocks. It’ll also be the season finale in the points for all the support classes. Check out our website at cornwallspeedway.com for an up to date list of the championship points trail.
On Sunday, September 10th, it’s the Fireball Enduro 300. Registration forms are available at the Speedway box office.