FRIDAY THE 13TH GOOD OMEN FOR FIRST-TIME WINNER HEFFNER AT VOLUSIA
BARBERVILLE, FL.....Luck of the draw finally played into J.R. Heffner's hand Friday night as he led all but one circuit to score his first career feature win at Volusia Speedway Park in round three of the 2004 Florida Tour.
Coming on the heels of seventh and ninth-place feature finishes, Heffner's dominating performance came after starting third in the 26-car field that boasted an all-star cast of DIRT Motorsports top open-wheel pilots.
"It's so competitive out here that a top-10 finish really isn't all that bad," said Heffner, 31, whose draws for heat race starting position put him in the back row the first two shows. He selected a front row spot for his qualifier on Friday en route to victory and a third-place start for the main event.
"The guys have given me a really good car all week but we've had to make up quite a bit of ground. I figured anywhere in the front four rows would leave me a chance to win and tonight was a good night to find out," said Heffner, following his eighth DIRT big-block triumph worth $2,000. His only other win in the Sunshine State was recorded in 2001 at East Bay Raceway when he passed Danny Johnson in the final turn to win a special 10-lap dash.
The 30-lap DIRT Modified main got underway with pole-sitter Doug Hoffman jumping out ahead of front row partner and younger brother Keith Hoffman. But Heffner charged into second before the first lap was complete and the first yellow flag was thrown for a disabled mount of Jamie Mills parked on the front straightaway.
Heffner inched ahead across the line on the ensuing restart and the following circuit caution lights flashed for a second time as Rick Laubach suffered a flat right rear tire. Heffner opened up a comfortable advantage on the restart ahead of Doug Hoffman and early chasers Pat Ward, Keith Hoffman and Danny Johnson.
Twenty consecutive laps of green flag action allowed Heffner to put distance between the rest of the field although the top-10 positions changed behind him almost every time around. With five laps complete Dale Planck had blasted into third while Alan Johnson crept in on the front-five after starting 13th.
Youngest racing brother Danny Johnson found the outside lane to his liking aboard the familiar orange no. 27J Troyer machine, replacing Planck in third on lap 13 before slipping past Ward for second the following circuit. While Heffner continued to increase his advantage, the brothers Johnson, Ward, Hoffman and Planck traded paint in traffic as the laps dwindled.
Head flagman Kenny Golden dropped the third yellow flag for Keith Hoffman on lap 24 when contact with Bucky Kell sent his Bicknell mount slamming into the turn three wall. With only a half-dozen laps left and a clear track ahead, the only battle that remained was for the runner-up spot as Heffner's no. 74 A. Colarusso & Son-T&T Sales/Bicknell entry was easily the class of the field.
Back under green flag conditions Alan Johnson sized up the leaders and charge into fourth on lap 25. Following a brief caution period for Rex King's stalled car on the back chute, Ward regained second on lap 28 and Planck sped past Alan Johnson to complete the top-five as the white flag waved.
When the checkers flew Heffner had sprinted out to nearly a half straightaway lead on the fast Barberville half-mile oval, with Ward settling for runner-up laurels ahead of Danny Johnson, Doug Hoffman and Planck.
"This has really been a fun track to race on with both a high and low groove to choose from," Heffner said. "But sometimes it's a disadvantage when you're leading because you can't watch what lines the other guys are running. I liked running outside yet I still went to the bottom at the end to protect the lead. If anyone was going to get by they'd really have to earn it."
Syracuse Eckerd 200 champions Alan Johnson and Vic Coffey, upstart G.R. Smith, Jimmy Horton and 21st starter Tim McCreadie filled out the top-10 with second round winner Billy Decker scored in 16th, the last car to complete all 30 laps. Brett Hearn was never a factor, finishing 11th after qualifying through the consolation round.
Through three of the four scheduled Florida Tour races run at Volusia, Ward tops the point standings with 154 markers, while Hearn and Doug Hoffman are tied at 152 followed by Heffner (144) and Horton (136). Ward has tallied a pair of runner-up finishes to claim the points lead ahead of opening night winner Hearn and Hoffman, the only driver to post all top-five finishes entering Saturday's show down.
Open-wheel action at Volusia concludes for the DIRT Modifieds on Saturday night with a 50-lap big-block main paying $5,000 to win headlining the 33rd Winter Nationals finale in Florida.
DIRT Diary:
The ultra-fast track conditions on Friday night produced limited passing in the preliminary events with defending Florida Tour champion Tim Fuller, all-time Winter Nationals big-block winner Hearn and newly anointed late model star McCreadie forced to qualify in their respective consolation races.....Delaware veteran Deron Rust and teenager Dan Vauter were the only cars unable to make their heat race line-up. Vauter lost an oil pump in his no. 85 Bicknell machine during hot laps while Rust still suffered the after effects of a blown piston experienced the day before. Rex King returned after discovering a leak in one of the motor heads and replacing a magneto coil wire found the previous night.
Bound Brook, N.J. pilot Rich Scagliotta also returned to the track on Friday although he had no intentions of strapping back into his no. 8 Central Jersey Trailer & Hitch Depot mount. "That was the first time I've ever gone over," said Scagliotta, 41, as he watched the replay of his dramatic end-over-end flip from the previous night that climaxed after five rolls down the front stretch. "The frame did it's job, it bent but never collapsed around me. And the track safety crew did their job. When it was all over about 50 people came over to our pit area and found a way to help out." Scagliotta, a Sportsman racer at New Egypt (NJ) Speedway who began his career in 1998, was initially treated for a severely bruised orbital socket bone around his left eye at the Florida Hospital in nearby Deland and further tests were conducted by a neurologist on Friday afternoon at the Halifax Medical Center located adjacent to Daytona Int'l Speedway. While a full recovery is expected for Scagliotta, only the rear-end, transmission, steering box and Enders motor could be salvaged from his demolished Troyer machine.
While many veteran wheelman continue to make the annual trek south for Winter Nationals competition, just as much experience is evident from the starter's stand occupied by head flagman Kenny Golden. Serving as Volusia's chief starter since 1985, Golden began his flagging career near his Pennsylvania home at the now defunct Nazareth Raceway dirt half-mile and Dorney Park 1/5-mile paved bullring in 1960. "I'd like to make it 45 years next season," said Golden, who turns 64 in May. During the past five decades he has posed in victory lane with a host of Hall of Famers including Frankie Schneider, Al Tasnady, Gerald Chamberlain, Budd Olsen, Rags Carter and Carl VanHorn. He threw the first checkered flag of their careers for current stars Brett Hearn, Jimmy Horton and Doug Hoffman as well as asphalt aces John Andretti and Tony Hirschman. He even flagged a number of All-Star Racing League events at Nazareth for promoter Jerry Fried that featured pavement notables like Richie Evans, Bugs Stephens, Jerry Cook, Maynard Troyer, Geoff Bodine and Ron Bouchard along with dirt pilots Lou Lazzaro and Kenny Brightbill. "Flagging is more complicated nowadays, with the faster speeds forcing faster decisions to be made," said Golden, who controls the flags at Volusia every Saturday from mid-March through early October. "But meeting the drivers is still the most fun and racing has some of the best fans in all of sports. I remember watching guys like Timmy (McCreadie) and David (Reutimann) when they were just kids. Racing will always have a great family tradition and the memories are for a liftime."
SUMMARY EVENT NO. 3
HEAT 1: D.Hoffman, Planck, Dwyer, A.Johnson, Jackson.
HEAT 2: K.Hoffman, Clair, Hindley, Chrysler, Rasey.
HEAT 3: Heffner, Ward, King, Horton, Smith.
HEAT 4: Coffey, D.Johnson, Kell, Decker, Laubach.
CONSI 1: McCreadie, Buffalino, Shultz.
CONSI 2: Hearn, Mills, Fuller.
FEATURE(30LAPS): J.R. HEFFNER, Pat Ward, Danny Johnson, Doug Hoffman, Dale Planck, Alan Johnson, Vic Coffey, G.R. Smith, Jimmy Horton, Tim McCreadie, Brett Hearn, Randy Chrysler, Tim Fuller, Rick Laubach, Mario Clair, Billy Decker, Colin Jackson, Dominick Buffalino, Chris Shultz, Jim Rasey, Keith Hoffman, Rex King, Bucky Kell, Tim Hindley, Ron Dwyer, Jamie Mills.