As if the improvement wasn’t obvious after his fourteenth place finish at Brownstown in the second race of the year, ICE has bounced back with three straight top five finishes, including a win at Sunday’s 50-lap race at the Cumberland Speedway in Maryland.
Showing steady improvement after not making his first feature event at VLR in a couple of years, ICE started on the pole and quickly took the lead while never looking back even after a late restart had him on edge.
ICE certainly didn’t appear to have the fastest car on the track for the event, but he used a combination of determination and a multi-car battle for second to ensure he’d be in victory lane at the conclusion of the race.
“It feels good,” said ICE, who grabbed his fifth career win in VLR’s top series, but first in two years. “I had a pretty good car tonight, I think F1yer had the car to beat. But he started back in the pack and had to fight a lot of traffic, and I was able to kinda keep everyone at bay due to them racing so hard.
“I definitely feel like I got King Kong off my back.”
Outside Pole-sitter and WFO_Rainman of East Moline, Ill., led a group of challengers chasing ICE for the top spot, but he ran out of time finishing second, 0.413 of a second behind his fellow team WFO driver. It was his best finish of the season in his familiar purple-colored x59 machine after winning at this same track last season.
BLS_F1yer of Hildebran, NC., finished third in his National Guard Chevrolet after having to start sixth by virtue of leading the point standings heading into the race, as he missed out on the second spot by .0001 in a side by side finish with WFO_Rainman.
Completing the top five was seventh starting Doit 5 of Wichita, Ks., as he used a late race restart to improve four spots in eight laps, and VLR_18 of Brookfield, Wi., who saw his hopes dashed after the restart when he was running in the top three before.
VLR_Shock also ended up with a bad finish thanks in part to the late race restart. The Crossville, Tn., driver was holding down fifth place after starting eighth before getting knocked around in the final second and taking ninth at the line.
WFO_ICE was unquestionably counting his lucky stars after what happened to several other competitors in the last eight laps following the restart.
“I thought I was toast,” said ICE, who had to fight off the top drivers in the game after a late caution was brought out by Doit 3. “I knew if I got on the gas hard and just tried to get as good of a first lap as I could and get some kind of a lead, and I was able to pull about three tenths on them that first lap, and they got to fighting again and I was able to keep it going.
“I finally got to some tracks (on the schedule) I’m decent at.”
WFO_Rainman was never able to get close enough to make a run for the win at his teammate, but it certainly wasn’t for lack of effort. The late race restart revived his hopes at winning, but he was unable to back up his win here one season ago.
“The adrenaline was definitely flowing in the first half of the race before the caution came out,” said Rainman, who slipped as far back as fifth during the A-Main. “I already went into the wall and fell back a little bit from the tight racing, came back up to second and was racing my ass off again with everyone in your draft.”
A second-place finish still left the driver known as the ‘Slidejob Master’ with a smile on his face.
“It was a hell of a race man,” said WFO_Rainman.
BLS_F1yer was overall happy with his third place finish since it meant he extended his points lead over VLR_18 by four more points after VLR_18 hobbled home to a fifth place finish.
“Anytime you can add points against VLR_18 it’s a good night, no matter where you finish,’” said the hard-running F1yer. “I think second through fourth actually had a better shot at winning before the caution because we were reeling in ICE pretty good whenever we actually got lined up. It’s so hard to line up, though, because draft will suck you right up and it’s either run into them or run under them. It was real hard to stay lined up.
“I think we had a better short before the caution, though.”
Doit 5 made an impressive charge to the front in eight laps after restarting in seventh following the caution, and made an average day turn to a good one with a fourth place finish.
“It felt real good,” said Doit 5. “I think probably with the aggression of some of the other drivers trying to get to that top spot (after the restart) kind of opened the door for me.
“Sometimes patience is a virtue. I like to mix it up if I can. I don’t think I had but a seventh place car to be honest with you. I had worked with the setup the night before and I was way off on the setups and during the heat race and the B feature I was able to get a little closer on the set and kinda made the car a little more competitive.
“I just did the best I could do with the setup I had. All in all I think it was about a seventh place car, but the door opened up and I took advantage of it.”
One driver who didn’t have luck in his favor was 16-year-old VLR_18, as he got knocked around on the restart with eight laps to go and ultimately finished fifth, his worst finish at VLR in the last twenty-two races he’s started.
“We got a long ways to go I guess,” said 18, who had to calm down after the race when he had some pointed words for a couple drivers. “I’m looking forward to Farmer City.”
Finishing in positions 6-10 was New York driver Doit 3, who restarted tenth with eight laps to go and ended up four spots higher; VLR_McGee of Spartanburg, SC., who won last week at Knoxville but didn’t have quite the speed he hoped for this week; VLR_JW of West Point, Ms, who’s hopes for a top five were dashed after the restart when Doit 10 made contact with him; VLR_Shock of Crossville, Tn.; Doit 10 of Fort Worth, TX.
Twenty-eight drivers were signed in for the second ever race at this half-mile dirt oval in Maryland. Jus8x was a crowd-favorite at his hometown track, but unfortunately came up just one spot short from transferring into the feature event.
BLS_F1yer registered his first pole of the season by cranking out a mind-blowing lap of 14.01 seconds around the speedplant.
Heat winners were BLS_F1yer, WFO_ICE, and WFO_Rainman. Doit 5 and VLR_Shock were the victors of the night's two B Main features. The drivers will head to Farmer City 2010 this coming Sunday before taking the week off for Halloween.
Top 10 Results of VLR Late Model series The Rock 50 (Finishing Position/Start/Driver):
1. (1) WFO_ICE
2. (2) WFO_Rainman
3. (6) BLS_F1yer
4. (7) Doit 5
5. (3) VLR_18
6. (5) Doit 3
7. (9) VLR_McGee
8. (4) VLR_JW
9. (8) VLR_Shock
10. (10) Doit 10
Time of Race: Unknown
Margin of Victory: 0.41 Secs.
Rookie of the Race: ErL_Goat
SuperClean Fast Time Award: BLS_F1yer 13.92
SuperClean Hard Luck Award: VLR_JW