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Schacht
and Brougher Add Names to SCSCS Record Book in Inaugural Dominion
Raceway Special Event
Thornburg,
Virginia (September 24, 2017) – The
Super Cup Stock Car Series made their long-awaited first ever stop
at the immaculate Dominion Raceway and Entertainment complex and
gave fans that came out a show worth talking about.
The inaugural SCSCS 75-lap non-points
special event presented by Avatar Instruments saw Bob Schacht as the
driver to beat throughout the afternoon, quickest on short practice
runs and claiming the Pole Award with a best time of 15.882 seconds.
2017’s Top Performing Rookie recipient Jerod Brougher made
the six-car redraw for the first time in his career and ended up
leading the 15-car field to green.
Almost immediately, Schacht marched
from his fourth starting position toward the front, but not without
a fight from outside pole starter Ben Ebeling.
Ebeling, a winner at Lonesome Pine in early August,
successfully gained sole possession of the top spot and led for
numerous circuits.
As
the halfway distance approached, Schacht steadily closed in on
Ebeling and the No. 75 Engineered Components nosed under the No. 44
Wrench Rags / Custom Graphics Ford at the line.
Out of turn two, Schacht rocketed into the lead.
A yellow flag on lap 40 for Craig
Wood, making his first SCSCS start since 2011, bunched up the field
and set forth a noticeable change of events.
When the race resumed, Schacht unusually drifted high on the
front stretch, nudging Ebeling toward the wall, and allowing Kevin
Kromer to dive below both to take the lead.
“First and foremost, I have to
apologize to the 44 car,” Schacht explained after the race.
“He started on the outside of me and when I grabbed fourth
gear that thing just jumped sideways.
I don’t know why, but it beat him and me up pretty good
there.”
Both
frontrunners regrouped following a red flag after an extreme impact
for first-year SCSCS driver Ron Langdon into the turn four outside
wall. The Freeport, New
York racer was okay. Schacht
searched everywhere on the 4/10-mile surface before regaining the
lead from Kromer on lap 47. The
next time by, Ebeling caught Kromer and the two tangled, sending
Kromer for a 360 in turn two.
Once both were sent to the rear of
the field due to the contact, Brent Nelson was given a shot at
Schacht. The Petersburg,
West Virginia driver’s best chance came on a restart with 10 laps
remaining when he drew even with the No. 75 for the opening lap of
the final green flag run. Nevertheless,
it was Schacht who powered ahead enough to claim his first SCSCS
checkers.
It was a long time coming for the
Mooresville, North Carolina driver who won 19 times during his
storied ARCA career, but had not found it too easy to seal the deal
since joining Super Cup.
“It took a couple laps for my tires
to come in, but once they came in though it was hooked up,”
Schacht mentioned. “I
haven’t won a race since 1998 at Memphis so this is big for us.
To come back after 15 years and not driving at all, kind of
wanting to play a little bit, found you guys here in the Super Cup
deal with (Director of Competition) Joe Schmaling.
This is just a fun group to race.”
It
was also announced during race day that the Super Cup Stock Car
Series will be opening and concluding their 2018 season on Saturday,
April 28 and Saturday, September 29 at Dominion Raceway, a move
Schacht and several more applauded.
“I hear that we’re going to come
back and start the season here and going to finish it here; I think
that’s a good plan because it’s an awesome place,” Schacht
commented.
Nelson had been looking forward to
this event for months and despite coming up a position short was
satisfied.
“Bob’s just a good driver and
would come off the corner with a lot of straightaway speed,” the
driver of the No. 80 Airtek Inc. / Precision Auto Collision
Chevrolet noted. “I
could hang with him going through the corners but down the
straightaway he was a rocket ship.”
Veteran racer Mike Potter quietly had
his best result to date in third without one bit of damage on his
self-owned No. 12 Chevrolet.
Kromer rallied back to a fourth place
finish, while Ebeling salvaged a fifth.
Both drivers had differing accounts regarding what had
happened earlier on.
“He just drove in underneath me and
turned me right around,” Kromer said.
“It was just one of them deals.
We got put to the back and just drove it for all it was
worth.”
After all was said and done, Kromer
still saw many positives upon simply being at the track and having
the opportunity to race on his one-year anniversary of being cancer
free.
“When I got the lead I knew Bob was
fast and my only game plan I had was to make him go around the
outside, but unfortunately he got a good run off of four on me, got
his nose under me, and my spotter said he was there,” the
Walnutport, Pennsylvania veteran, driving his son Kyle’s No. 52
for the weekend, continued. “We
won, regardless, today.”
“I’m going to fault myself at
first because I overdrove the one corner and got a little bit of
marbles on the car and we slid up and opened the door for the 75,”
Ebeling recalled from the lead change around the halfway point.
“We should have never been in that position.
I tried to stay off of (Kromer), but I was up to his door and
the way I’ve always raced is if I’m underneath you and under
your door that’s my spot. I’d
like a little bit of room, just give me a car width, 65 inches or
whatever it is wide, and that’s all I want.
I really felt like we had a car to win, just disappointing to
come home with a tore up race car.”
Brougher
wrestled back from overheating issues to return to the lead lap and
finish in seventh during the main event, resulting in a third place
starting position for the 25-lap Extreme Awards and Personalization
Trophy Dash that followed for competitors who have yet to win in the
Super Cup Stock Car Series.
Potter, the pole starter accelerated
to the front early on the first lap, but it was Tim Richardson
and
Brougher who motored inside for the
top two spots at the completion of the first circuit.
A few laps later Brougher took the lead on the outside and
began to lengthen the margin, but an interesting final lap set up a
last ditch effort for Richardson coming to the checkers.
“Tim and I had a really good race
at the beginning and had a good side by side battle,” Brougher
recapped. “We were
pretty even. I started
pulling away from him, but on the last lap I got pinched up in the
wall by a lapped car and the 90 was able to catch up to us.
He almost passed us coming out of four, but we were able to
hold him off.”
The 30-year-old driver of the No. 72
Donegal Auto Body / Parry Custom Homes Chevrolet saw all of the hard
work put into completing his first season pay off after a debut that
started off sluggishly due to issues not necessarily of his own
doing.
“You’re
going to have to pinch me later because it doesn’t seem
possible,” an elated Brougher remarked.
“For this little team of mine to do this -- I built this
engine two years ago for my Street Stock.
I did nothing to it, except change the carburetor to bring it
here. Joe (Schmaling)’s
not kidding. Whenever
you can take a Street Stock motor and compete with these guys that
have the high RPM or high dollar motors, it’s real.”
The variety taking place in the 10th
Anniversary season demonstrates an exceptional record of nine
different winners in 10 races held.
Many of those already triumphant competitors and a number
more searching for their first victory of 2017 will receive two last
chances when the Super Cup Stock Car Series makes their initial
visit to Highland Rim Speedway outside of Nashville, Tennessee on
Saturday, October 14 for Twin 50-lap special events.
Please visit the official web site at
www.supercupstockcarseries.com
and Facebook or Twitter
accounts for more information regarding the Dominion Raceway
Inaugural SCSCS Race presented by Avatar Instruments and upcoming
events remaining in 2017 and being planned for 2018.
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