Five Weekend Afterthoughts: 5/7/12

1.  I'm really happy for Jesse Wardell and the folks over at Hilltop Speedway.  They were the big winners this weekend with over 150 cars in the pits for their five-division program.  To compliment the 33 Late Models, they had 53 cars for the inaugural Renegades of Dirt Modified show.  We hear the racing was pretty darn good too with George Lee getting a last lap pass on KC Burdette to win the Late Model feature while Lance Elson bested a solid field of Mods for the $1500 paycheck.

2.  It comes as no surprise, but the Friday night Sunoco ALMS Late Model show at Limaland Motorsports Park was rained out for an unprecedented FIFTH year in a row. I hate to hear this because Limaland is a fun track for the Late Models and, honestly, one of the best Late Model races I have ever seen was the Sunoco ALMS show there back in 2003 where Kris Patterson made a daring last lap, last turn, high-side pass on Rick Delong to steal the win.

3.  After a one-year hiatus, the Sunoco ALMS Late Models returned to Fremont Speedway with Jon Henry getting the $2000 payday from the 7th starting spot. There were several movers-and-shakers throughout the field with Ryan Missler charging from 14th to 3rd, Garrett Krummert from 20th to 6th, and Ryan Markham from 18th to 8th. When it's prepped right, Fremont is as good of a track as any and the Late Models rarely disappoint there.  Also, I'm glad to hear they pulled 27 cars in for this show...not too bad considering it was opening night at Oakshade and Fremont doesn't run Late Models weekly.

4.  Eldora had nearly 40 UMP Modifieds Saturday night with a pretty stout field of cars including the likes of Joey Kramer, Jeff Babcock, Doug Adkins, Fireball Pinkerton, Matt Bex, Scott Orr, Jesse Bitterling and others.  Race-long leader Aaron Orr slapped the wall with just six laps to go ending his chances for his first career win.  Matt Westfall inherited the point, only to have Babcock shoot by with four laps remaining to nab the win.  Kramer was the hard charger, rallying to a 4th place finish after starting 17th.

5.  Side-by-side racing and tons of passing is one of the reasons why Oakshade is so popular.  Congrats to Matt Miller on getting his first win of 2012 in the Rick Delong #3. The top five finishers at Oakshade started 8th (Miller), 7th (Andrew Reaume), 12th (Casey Noonan), 1st (Rusty Schlenk), and 14th (Steve Kester) and that's certainly worth a hat tip.