EVERGREEN SPEEDWAY WEEKEND RECAP

Saturday nights racing at Evergreen featured 114 cars total through the back gates. A large crowd of enthusiastic and excited race fans came through the front gates. They were not disappointed as the racing action was full of spills and thrills all night long.

The NASCAR Whelen All American Series Championship Battles continued in all three Divisions Saturday. The premiere Speedway Chevrolet Super Stocks started a full field of 18 cars. A first lap incident relegated Jeff Holden to the pits. Tough luck for the hard charging rookie who races against his brother Mike in the division. Mike confirmed that they are putting a new car together and will hopefully get it to the track in the next two weeks. Meanwhile there is yet another new driver ready to take the wheel of his current car adding to the quickly growing crowd of cars at Evergreen. John Zaretzke became the first-two-time winner in the division once again leading Defending Champion Shane Harding to the finish. A one-lap dash to the checkered was set up as a late caution flew. John credited his "regular four speed transmission" with helping him to his victory as he charged to a three-car length lead out of turn four on the final restart to drive away from Harding to victory. Meanwhile Kelly Mann had the drive of the night coming from all the way in the back after having to work his car through tech and missing qualifying. His third place finish was a real solid performance and he showed a lot of savvy in traffic. Roger Habich put up the fastest lap of the evening in the field on lap 7 with a 17.491 finishing sixth after a tussle with Travis Powell down the front stretch.

The Les Schwab Tires Bombers were once again at it with a 19-car field in their main event. The closeness of times is representative of how tough it is to win in the Bomber Division. While Frank Cowgill became yet another new winner this season, the racing was pretty tight in his mirror. Darrell Lutovsky had a nice second place finish, helping him in the championship chase and Steve Peter's third place finish propelled him towards the Rookie of the Year title as well as the championship. Former champion Travis Blackwood put up the fastest lap of the race in lap 13 at 19.224.

Mini Stocks surrounded the track and went 21 cars deep as the green flag was displayed. Defending Champion Mark Weedin started at the back and had a long way to go to the front. He does know the way though and eventually he wrestled the lead from Chuck Richards. It was Richards's birthday and Weeding felt bad "for just a second" but considering that the day before was Wedding's birthday...Richards went second with Drew Harthorn rounding out the top three. Joe Hobbs had a incident which left him on his top. He was able to climb out, but the accident made for along red flag period.

Once again FEAR's fantastic Stinger Eight's put on a spirited and wild main event. 17 Stingers took the green flag and when the dust settled "Crashing" Kenny Bates stood tall as the winner. Cody Koroshes failed post race inspections so Jim Perry finished second with the "Wizard" Ben Chandler finishing third. The Super Figure Eights had a full field as well and Sean Peters continued with his surprising rise to figure eight fame by patiently working his way through the field, holding off a charging "Cowboy" John Carlson, and taking his second win of the season. He is the first to win two main events this season in Super Figure Eights and is not only the leading Rookie contender but is also leading in the championship point's battle! "I'd like to be the first to win Rookie of the Year and the Championship in the same year" he said during his interview after his first victory this season. He is well on his way and was named "Little Nickel Driver of the Week". Check out your local Little Nickel this Wednesday for his photo and bio.

For more information including driver blogs please visit evergreenspeedway.com

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