ABELSON 2 TIME WINNER AT PARK JEFFERSON
LeRoy Beck
(08/27/09)
Saturday evening at Park Jefferson Speedway, Racers, Car Owners, Crew Members and Fans paid tribute to Charlie Clark of Lemars, Ia. who recently was stricken at a race track in Beatrice, Ne.
Charlie was instrumental in racing, engine building, fabricating and mentor for many area drivers. He and his wife Char owned and operated Harris Racing for a number of years and his son, Justin continues to operate Razor Chasis by Clark in Lemars, Ia. Clark was reconized for all his contributions to racing at both, I-80 Speedway in Greenwood, Ne. and Park Jefferson, in Jefferson, S.D.
Chris Abelson of Sioux City entered the Saturday night program second in the point standing behind teammate Reese coffee of Hinton, Ia. Ableosn used his front row starting position to capture the first of two feature wins and tighten the point battle between himself and Coffee, going into next week's season championship contest. Abelson was able to hold off third place points driver Bob Moore of Sioux City for the win, while Coffee settled for a fifth place finish. The Charlie Clark Memorial Race, twenty two lap feature was a different story but with similar results. Abelson would start the race toward the rear of the field after expiring a motor in the heat race. He used a number of caution flags and mishaps to his advantage. Teammate Coffee would start up front and lead the feature until the last 2 laps when Abelson took his Maaske Motorsport Modified to the outside cushioin to out duel Coffee for the Clark Memorial victory .
Jason Ward of Sioux City held off Curt VanBeek in the first feature to pad his points lead in the B & B Salvage Stock Car event. The second feature was won by Travis Barker of Sioux City, his first feature win of the season.
Darin Roepke picked up the first feature win of the evening in the MotorParts Central 360 Modified division. Roepke battled Jeff Brunssen of leMars and Rich headid of Sioux City for the victory. The Charlie Clark Memorial feature was won by Keith Sanders of North Sioux City. Sanders took the lead from Dan VanBruggen of Hospers, Ia. on a caution flag and never looked back. Greg Peck of Sioux City finished third after starting deep in the field.
Homer, Neb driver John Cain won the makeup feature in the Yankton Automotive Hobby Stocks but point leader Rusty Montagne used the high side of the track to his advantage to pass Cain and Paul Menard for the second feature win. Montagnecontinues with the point lead going into the season championship next week.
Points leader zach Ankrum won the first feature over Sioux City native Chuck Rose in the Steve's Roofing 4 cylcinder hornet class. Ankrum had a four point advantage over Rose going into the night but Rose battled back in the second feature to pocket the win with Ankrum finishing third.
Andy Hoffman won the first of the two features in the 2 pedrson cruisers, with the second feature win going to Tony Boulware of Jefferson, SD.
Next Saturday night will be season championship night at Park Jefferson.
