PAINE OVERCOMES THE DOCTOR AT FONDA

Sunday, October 17, 1999- Paine and "the doctor" battled until the end and when the checker flew, Steve Paine of Waterloo, NY was the winner of the McDonald's 200 at Fonda. Paine said "Danny was handicapped a little" referring to the soft left front tire that Johnson had to deal with about 3/4 of the way through the event. Johnson opted to stay out and keep the lead hoping he could hang on for the win. It was not to be. Steve Paine battled Danny Johnson from lap 125 and the two exchanged the lead twice in the final laps before Paine claimed his first ever big block win at Fonda.

Frank Twing of Hillsdale, NY continued his winning ways from Super DIRT Week and picked up the checker in the 30 lap Mr. DIRT Pro Stock Championship event.

When the green dropped on the McDonald's 200, pole sitter, Randy Hotaling looped in front of the field and the 34 cars scrambled to avoid him. Fonda's 1999 Modified Champ, Dave Camara was the most unfortunate and had to be towed to the pits.

On the restart outside pole sitter, Brett Hearn was the leader. Hearn led until lap 15 when the doctor came calling and slipped under him in turn three.

On lap 34 Hearn got close enough to challenge Danny in turn two. Hearn tried the inside for the pass. The hole closed sending Hearn into one of the tires along the inside of the speedway and the Budweiser No. 3 flipped over and over and then end over end before coming down on the rear bumper. Hearn was not hurt but he was upset with Danny. When asked in the post race press conference if he hit him, Danny said, "I was the leader, wasn't I.?"

On the restart Mike Romano challenged Syracuse 300 winner, Kenny Tremont for second but came up short. On the next lap Romano got close in turn three and tapped the rear bumper of Tremont sending him into a 360 degree spin. The rest of the field did a great job in avoiding the spinning No. 115. Tremont recovered and fell in line about 1/3 of the way back in the pack. After his mandatory pit stop, Tremont was able to come back to finish eleventh in the event.

Romano was now chasing Danny Johnson for the lead until he began to lose ground and Doug Hoffman and Tim MrCreadie got by on lap 68. Romano pulled to the pits on lap 78.

This left Hoffman and McCreadie battling for the lead. McCreadie passed Hoffman on a restart and was the leader until the next caution when Frank Cozze who had joined the top group took the lead on the next restart.

Cozze led until the next restart when Danny Johnson who had already made his pit stop took the lead from Cozze. At this point Steve Paine was on Johnson's bumper and, Jack Johnson was now in fourth.

Danny Johnson had a left front tire go soft after 3/4 of the event was complete and this gave Paine a shot at him on the backstretch. Paine led until Johnson was able to catch him despite the failing tire and passed Paine to regain the lead on lap 114.

The race really began to shape up for the final checker on lap 190 when Paine once again on Johnson bumper began to challenge. Paine slipped under Johnson on the backstretch for the final lead change of the event. This left Johnson second with Jack Johnson closing in.

Until the final caution on lap 196, Jack Johnson was gaining ground on the top two. Under caution Jack appeared to have a badly worn right rear tire.

As the checker flew on the event Paine was the winner with Danny Johnson second. Bobby Varin slipped by Jack Johnson for third as the right rear tire of the Bobar No. 12B irrupted just before the flagstand. Jack held on for fourth followed by Tim Fuller for fifth.

Frank Twing led the 30 lap Pro Stock race early and was able to survive all the cautions. This gave him a second chance for the lead when he overtook Tom Kuck for a battle on lap 23. Kuck and Twing exchanged the lead twice before Twing prevailed on lap 25 and continued on to take the checker. The win was Twing's second in two weeks on the Mr. DIRT Pro Stock Championship trail. Fonda's own Ken Gates was the only other car to lead the caution plagued event.

Tom Kuck of Mahopac, NY was able to claim the Mr. DIRT Pro Stock Championship title with his second place finish at Fonda.

McDonald's 200 Modified finish (200 laps) 1) 7X STEVE PAINE, 2) 27J Danny Johnson, 3) 93 Bobby Varin, 4) 12B Jack Johnson, 5) M1 Tim Fuller, 6) 1P Alan Johnson, 7) 1H Doug Hoffman, 8) 56 Pat Ward, 9) 22 Dave Lape, 10) 8 Jack Cottrell, 11) 115 Kenny Tremont, 12) 88 Frank Cozze, 13) 5s Bob Savoie, 14) 23 John McAuliffe, 15) 91 Billy Decker, 16) 21J Jeff Trombley, 17) 5A Jim Horton, 18) 51 Lee Nutting, 19) 3D Matt DeLorenzo, 20) 87B Jason Barney, 21) 20 Matt Quinn, 22) 94 Tim McCreadie, 23) 2K Mitch Gibbs, 24) 11A Tony Pepicelli, 25) 1s Tim Clemons, 26) 21 Ronnie Johnson, 27) 97 Mike Romano, 28) 73 John Marsh, 29) 7H Randy Hotaling, 30) 3 Brett Hearn, 31) 4 Lou Lazzaro, 32) 333 Bobby Albert, 33) 84 Gary Tompkins, 34) 26 Dave Camara

DNS Bob McCreadie, Chris Moore, Wayne Figler, Bob Enright, John Kollar, Bill Huff, Harry Shaffer, Andy Romano, Kevin Crave, Brian Purdy, Ken Hanson, Pierre Dagenais, Vic Coffey, Bob Sitterly, A. J. Romano, Billy Gray, Donnie Corellis, Seth Gano, Andy Bachetti, Brian Gathen, Jerry Pennock, Jr., Mark Maille, Bobby Melone, Ray Zemken.

Pro Stock finish (30 laps) 1) 317 FRANK TWING, 2) 35 Ken Gates, 3) 73 Tom Cannizzaro, 4) 27 Nick Stone, 5) 0j Jipp Ortiz, 6) 62 Mark Shultz, 7) 22J Kevin Jordan, 8) 79 Tom Kuck, 9) 28T Tom Barron, 10) 76 Wayne Oliver, 11) 74 Geoff Manning, 12) 57 Chuck McSpirit, 13) 26A Jim Burton, 14) 3K Joe Palmer, 15) 6 Jay Resch, 16) 71 Brian Jordan, 17) 1 Steve Welch, 18) 28R John Roese, 19) 11 Bill Hallett, 20) 42 Tom LaPlante, 21) 28s Mark Sullivan, 22) 70 Joey Duncan, 23) 99 Phil Sherman, 24) 0 Mark Lighthall, 25) 2 Ray Maloney, 26) 94 Tom Denton, 27) 711 Kerry Jordan, 28) 04 Chris Hutchison, 29) 17D Mike Loney, 30) 14 Rob Noviczski, 31) 516 Adam Haas, 32) 7N Jim Normoyle DNS Phlan Hart, Dave Shultz