SHACKLEFORD KEEPS SUPER LATE MODEL HOPES ALIVE, BUT LATE MODEL TITLE PICTURE GETS DISTORTED AT ORANGE SHOW SPEEDWAY

SAN BERNARDINO, California — Brandon Loverock, who had celebrated his 33rd birthday on Friday, gave himself a present Saturday night by winning the JAM Sportswear Late Model main event Saturday night (August 28) at Orange Show Speedway.

But the competition for the class championship and consideration for a national short track title took some unexpected and unfortunate turns.

The Super Late Model race was fairly straightforward in comparison, with reigning champion Mark Shackleford keeping his hopes of a repeat alive by claiming his second win of the season and trimming 4 points off of the 32-point advantage David Ross had enjoyed going into the contest.

Shackleford took the lead on lap 31 on a restart after the fifth yellow caution flag, for debris on the track that sidelined previous leader Brett Edwards, and held off Matt Hicks and Ross to complete the 50-lap race almost a second to the good.

The Late Models put on a slugfest.

Jeff Peterson, who had won three of the past four races to pull within 7 points of Ron Daniel, was involved in an incident with Daniel on lap 3 after they had played mind games with each other on the warm-up laps. That incident damaged Peterson’s car enough that he could do little more than limp along in the rear of the pack while Ron Daniel moved into the top five.

Then on lap 35, Peterson and Ryan Daniel, Ron’s son, got together in Turn 4 and didn’t stop squabbling until race officials ordered them off the track, a development that meant neither driver received any points for the evening. As a result, Ron Daniel went home with a 55-point lead after finishing fifth.

That put Daniel in firm control of the fight for the track championship, which carries with it consideration for the Joe Gibbs Driven Racing Oil ASA Member Track National Championship. And to add insult to an already bad night, Peterson’s crew had to tear down the Chevrolet engine in his Toyota Camry after a protest was filed.

The only bright spot for the team was that the car passed the inspection and Peterson’s team got the $500 protest money.

Nevada Chovan got the evening under way by winning his fourth straight Stock OHV Kart main event. It was the fifth win overall for the 12-year-old Rialto (Ca.) resident, who took a 6-point lead over Steven Larson with two races to go.

Dan French of Claremont (Ca.) got his third win in a row and fourth in the past five races for the Interstate Batteries Factory Fours and there is a tie for the class points lead for the third time this season. That happened when Danny Gutierrez and Dwayne Blay were penalized two spots for infractions found in post-race inspection. That left Kim Marzullo second and Blay fifth and erased the 6-point lead Blay had over Marzullo when the night began.

Kyle Cline of Apple Valley (Ca.) stayed perfect in the Dwarf Cars division with his sixth pole and sixth win in as many races and Brent Scheidemantle of Alta Loma (Ca.) got his fifth win in his past six starts in the 30-lap Budweiser Legends Cars feature.