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First-Time
Winners, Young and Experienced, Tackle Midvale Twin 50s
Midvale,
Ohio (June 4, 2017) – Saturday night’s Skipco Auto Auction
Twin 50s presented by United Tire & Service exhibited the
incredible amount of effort required in order to power to the front
and win a Super Cup Stock Car Series race.
With a series
record 20 cars on hand at the Midvale Speedway 3/10-mile oval,
qualifying initially showed how tight of a fight it would be later
on the track surface. 2015
event winner Larry Berg claimed his third career pole award, but
only five-hundredths of a second separated the Petersburg, West
Virginia driver from Jim Crabtree Jr. and Harvey Harrison.
Crabtree,
returning to the series for the first time since 2013, shot into the
early lead in his No. 63 Jim's Automotive / Judy's Apartments
Chevrolet. Behind him,
last year’s rookie of the year Trent Gossar was making moves using
the outside line. By lap
10, Berg had found his way under Crabtree once again with Brent
Nelson and Gossar following by.
Nelson, the
defending Midvale winner, would have a short-lived top five run as
drivetrain issues sidelined him for the remainder of the night.
During a yellow flag around the same time, Gossar was ordered
to the pits to inspect some noticeable smoke that began billowing
from the back of his No. 71 Gossar's Towing / Don Gnat Racing
Chevrolet the prior green flag run.
The
Markleville, Indiana 24-year-old advanced back through the pack with
Berg, Crabtree, and defending SCSCS champion Harvey Harrison mixing
it up for the lead. Once
Crabtree regained the lead, Gossar then powered around him on a
restart with 13 laps remaining.
Crabtree kept the leader in his sights, but it was Gossar
that took the checkered flag for the first time in his SCSCS career.
“It’s
definitely a big goal and accomplishment and hopefully there will be
more to come,” Gossar, a contender for victory twice in his first
full season in 2016, said.
It was also the
first win for Don Gnat Racing since 2013, when runner-up Crabtree
drove for the team. The
team acquired a new car and started working on it only a few weeks
ago. Altogether, it was
a never give up attitude that showed how hard work pays off.
“They got me
upset and a little worked up when they made me go to the tail
because I thought I should have got my spot back,” Gossar noted.
“I guess a mad driver is a fast driver.”
Berg, Harrison, and
JP Crabtree completed the top five in race No. 1.
Last
year’s fast qualifier and runner-up finisher Stephen Cox was never
a factor for the win in the first race.
Salvaging a 10th place result, the Rohrbaugh
Racing team discovered an issue with the rear end and had to park
his No. 21 STA-BIL 360 Performance / McGunegill Engine Performance /
Impact Race Products Chevrolet.
Luckily for Cox, a
fatigued teammate Berg graciously opened up the seat of his No. 7
Grant County Mulch Chevrolet, ironically the same car in which the
Indianapolis driver piloted a year prior.
As a result of the driver change, he would have to start from
the back of the field for the second Twin 50.
After the first
race’s top finishers redrew for starting position, son and father
Brandon and Harvey Harrison started from the front row with Brandon
jumping out to the early lead. With
eight laps complete, Jim Crabtree Jr. made his way to the front once
again and began to pull away.
Gossar eventually
followed into second spot, but race No. 2 was short-lived for the
season opening winner due to a rear seal leak in the transmission.
With misfortune for
a couple of the frontrunners, Cox suddenly found himself in the top
five and maneuvered his way to second position prior to halfway.
Crabtree and Cox
broke away from the rest of the field during the closing stages and
began their own battle for the win.
Cox chased down Crabtree and with eight laps to go was able
to get a nose under him coming down the backstretch to gain the
lead.
After coming close
to victory multiple times in past SCSCS starts, Cox was thrilled he
could seal the deal a year after returning to racing following a
fiery accident in a road race the previous February.
“I feel like
we’ve had this coming for a while,” Cox mentioned.
“It is impossible to express how the planets aligned
tonight. I came back
after being hurt so bad in 2016.
We had this real high and then a crushing disappointment and
to come back and get my first Super Cup win after being denied a
couple times when I really think we should have had it is just more
than you can put into words.”
Cox also summed up
how tall a task it is to come from back to front with only 50 laps
to get the job done.
“It is so hard to
go from last to first because no matter what series you’re in, the
last five guys in front of you will kill or die to stay out front,
and they’re really good,” Cox continued.
“Thomas Rohrbaugh, my spotter, came over the radio and said
‘Stephen, there’s 10 to go.
Do what you do.’ I
just flat-freaking stood on it and I was overdriving the car a
little bit, but I think that Jimmie had to overdrive so much more to
stay ahead of me and we just wore him down.”
For Jim Crabtree
Jr., it was a spot short of the win in both races but a good start
to the season as the Muncie, Indiana has the early points lead for
both the northern division and overall championship.
“The car just
wouldn’t turn in the middle and then we’d lose forward bite off,
so that’s where we were 
getting
beat,” Crabtree explained. “We’ll
work on it and get it better for
the next one.”
JP Crabtree made it
a one-two-three sweep for the Hoosier State in the second race with
two-time Midvale winner Kevin Kromer turning around his recent bad
luck, recording his best finish since 2014 in fourth.
Harvey Harrison held on to round out the top five.
The next Super Cup
Stock Car Series event takes place at Kingsport Speedway in less
than three weeks with Twin 50-lap races on Friday, June 23.
It will be the first ever visit to the concrete 3/8-mile for
the series and the first time competing in the state of Tennessee
since the inaugural season in 2008.
Among those looking
forward to their debut in the Volunteer State is the first trophy
and 10th Anniversary season medallion recipient of 2017.
“I hear it’s
the sister track to Lonesome Pine, and I did pretty good there last
year, so hopefully we’ll be good there,”
Gossar, who finished second in last August’s event at the
Virginia facility less than an hour from Kingsport, commented.
The Skipco Auto
Auction Twin 50s presented by United Tire & Service will air at
a future date on MAVTV and LucasOilRacing.TV.
Please visit the
official web site at www.supercupstockcarseries.com,
the Super Cup Stock Car Series Facebook
or Twitter for more
information on the 10th Anniversary season.
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