I-80 Season Championship Results

Jim Brennan

Greenwood, Ne., 09/06/09 It was Season Championship night at I-80 Speedway
on Sunday night with Mike Wallace winning the NASCAR Whelan Racing Series
Late Model feature, Rick Negrete winning the Pro-ams, Dylan Smith winning
the IMCA Modified feature, Jesse Sobbing winning the IMCA Sports Mod
feature, Steven Saunders winning the Crate Late Model feature and Joe Baker
winning toe Sports Compact feature. "Lightning Leon" Zeitner took the
checkers first in the Ed's SLMR class.

All championship features were started heads up by the point standings. Bill
Leighton and Mike Wallace started the Late Model feature on the front row
and Leighton jumped out front at the start. But on the back stretch Wallace
took the lead and never looked back in winning his first feature of the
year. Leighton kept going backwards and ended up in 7th place. This dealt a
huge blow to his outside chances for the NASCAR National Championship. Les
Siebert, who finished 2nd, never had a chance to close in on Wallace. Andrew
Kosiski, Todd Hipnar and Brad Soll rounded out the top 5.

The Pro-am Feature was all Rick Negrete who led wire to wire for the win and
also was crowned the track champion for 2009. Shawn Bulin won a hard fought
2nd place from Matt Boucher. Dr. Nick Steier and Chad Sanders rounded out
the top 5.

The IMCA Modified feature saw point leader Dylan Smith wire the field of 11
race cars. Jeff Jones came on to challenge Smith but was unable to pass him
using the low side of the track. Now Smith has to sit back and wait to see
how his competition does for the National Championship. Smith also won
Friday night at the Nebraska State Fair Championships and has 3 track title
at I-80, US30 and Albion.

Once again in the Sports Mod feature Jesse Sobbing was too hot to handle as
he won going away over Robert Tippery. Jim Hendricks Jr., Dennis Cook and
Joe Feyen rounded out the top 5. Sobbing also won 3 track championships at
I-80, Harlan and Des Moines, so he should be in good shape for a National
title. Hendricks is the Nebraska State Champion for IMCA.

The Crate Late Models came down to a last lap pass by Steven Saunders over
Tyler Zander. And with that win Saunders also took the track championship.
Saunders was in a borrowed car after wrecking his the week before. Lindsey
Yost, Shawn Lee and Steven Powell rounded out the top 5.

Track Point leader Pete Fink Jr. did not even compete in the season
championship Sports Compact feature which gave Jake McCloud an opening to
tie Fink for the points lead. But McCloud's early lead after the green flag
did not last long as Justin Soule passed him for the lead. And then Joe
Baker came on to challenge Soule. Baker took the lead on lap 9 and went on
to record his 1st feature win of the season.

Then it was time for the big boys in the Ed's Super Late Model Racing
Association. Veteran driver Al Humphrey took the eary lead only to lose it
on lap 2 to Jase Kaser. Kaser stayed out front til lap 13 when "Lightning
Leon" Zeitner passed him for the lead. Zeitner who said, "my car was dialed
in just right tonight" lead the rest of the way with a hard charging Mike
Wiarda taking 2nd over Kaser, Humphrey and Travis Dickes. Zeitner said now
he's even with his son Justin, who won a SLMRA race earlier in the year.
Zeitner, Robbie Andersen and Dickes won the heat races while Craig Preble
won the B-Feature.


I-80 Speedway Results for 9/06/09


NASCAR Whelen Racing Series

Late Models: 1) 1w Mike Wallace, 2) 51 Les Siebert, 3) 2x Andrew Kosiski, 4)
12 Tod Hipnar, 5) 50 Brad Soll, 6) 17v Rick Vanderheiden, 7) 28 Bill
Leighton Jr., 8) 97d Dave Doll, 9) 43 Matt Buller, 10) 00 Clint Benson, 11)
Dave Cook, 12) Micah Brown, 13) Josh Krug, 14) Al Humphrey, 15) Jacob Brown,
16) Gary Joens Jr, 17) Jason Longmeyer, 18) Tom Svoboda, 19) Kent Schimenti,
20) Dwane Pospisil, 21) Mike Morton Jr., 22) Brent Baker, 23) Kortney
Kosiski, 24) Mollee Collins

Pro-ams: 1) 72 Rick Negrete, 2) 36 Shawn Bulin, 3) 5B Matt Boucher, 4) 8
Nick Steier, 5) 49x Chad Sanders, 6) 55 Ray Dessel, 7) 3T Tim Podraza, 8) 12
Terry Cleveland, 9) 28 Casey Cleveland, 10) 24 Don Mohr, 11) Dana Deeke, 12)
Herb Slough, 13) Justin Bertschinger, 14) Frank Timperly, 15) Don Atkins, 16
Jeff Atkins

IMCA Modifieds

1) 95 Dylan Smith, 2) 19j Jeff Jones, 3) 1s Scott Carlson, 4) 21h Shane
Hiatt, 5) 16b Randy Brown, 6) 8 Larry Goertz, 7) Z00 Lacey Tuttle, 8) 48
Larry Robinson Jr., 9) 69 Bill Bader Jr., 10) 12 Tyler Smith, 11) Nick
Sagamiller

SportMods: 1) Jesse Sobbing, 2) 121 Robert Tippery, 3) 33 Jim Hendricks Jr.,
4) 45 Dennis Cook, 5) 25x Joe Feyen, 6) 6 Denny Berghahn Jr., 7) 2 Mike
Brown, 8) 56 Jeremy Longmeyer, 9) 239 Stave Swarthout, 10) 10d Dustin
Thayer, 11) Brian Kosiski, 12) Cory Hutchison, 13) Nick Hermsen, 14) Nathan
Kobus, 15) Buddy Ray Jones, 16) Kyle Harpster, 17) Joe Thomas, 18) John
Riggleman, 19) Phil Brown, 20) Brian Florian, 21) David Nicholson, 22) Marty
Steinbach, 23) Ron Allen

Crate Late Model: 1) 44 Steven Saunders, 2) 2 Tyler Zander, 3) 20 Lindsey
Yost, 4) 40 Shawn Lee, 5) 14 Michael Powell, 6) 34 Michalea Kosiski, 7) 5c
Shevi Collins, 8) 33m Stephen McConnell

Sport Compacts

A-Feature: 1) 9x Joe Baker, 2) 16j Justin Soule, 3) Alex Fink, 4) 40 Jake
McCloud, 5) 6 Dan Markham, 6) 7 Kennin Colestock, 7) 97 John Irvine, 8) 74c
Dave Christensen, 9) 15 Jamie Spanel, 10) 18 Will McConnell, 11) Amanda
Christensen, 12) Brett Smith, 13) Skip Brown, 14) Andrew Cuva, 15) Tim
Cortney, 16) Wayne Stricklett, 17) David Neesen, 18) Preston Gigax, 19)
Trisha Hultgren, 20) Tammy Clark, 21) Kevin Zeitner, 22) Steve Niederhaus

SLMR Late Models

A-Feature: 1) 62 Leon Zeitner, 2) 1w Mike Wiarda, 3) 15x Jase Kaser, 4) 6 Al
Humphrey, 5) 21h Travis Dickes, 6) z62 Justin Zeitner, 7) 26jr Corey
Zeitner, 8) 53 Joe Kosiski, 9) 76 Al Zeitner, 10) 5x Mike Marushak, 11)
Jason Hobscheidt, 12) Curt Drake, 13) Keith Mander Jr., 14) Steve Kempt, 15)
Troy Daly, 16) Craig Preble, 17) John Nicholson, 18) Robbie Andersen, 19)
Dan Jackson, 20) Mel Zeitner, 21) Micah Brown, 22) Todd Bell