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Super Salute! Armed Forces Night falls to the rain

A beautiful spring day, although windy greeted the crowd at Eagle Raceway Saturday evening; but that would change later in the evening.

The preliminary events had two serious incidents. In the first heat for the Exhaust Pros IMCA Sport Compacts Melissa Etherton’s 14M made hard contact with the outside wall as it came back to the flag stand and then veered hard left. Also involved was the 7A of Austin Angel who was forced into the infield coming to a stop. The fire and safety crews went to his aid and ended up extracting him from the car. Both Melissa and Austin were transported to the hospital via ambulance. At this time there is no word on his condition. (both are doing okay at this time)

Then, in the B Feature for the class another sport compact ended up on it’s side coming out of turn 2. There were no serious injuries in this incident however.

In the A Main for the NAPA IMCA Sport Modifieds Benji Legg’s 25L was out front after lap #1 with Dustin Thayer’s 10T, the 17 of Mary Lenz and Bob Ruisinger’s 7 rounding out the top 4. Ruisinger passed Lenz for third on lap #2. Matt Boucher brought the 5B into the fourth position the next time around, only to be passed by Kevin Jochum’s #90 on lap 5. Denny Berghahn Jr. spun the 6S in turns 3 & 4 on lap 11 and the yellow flag was unfurled. As the field came back to the flag stand on the restart lap Boucher ended up rolling over on the front stretch after contact with the 13P of Jeremy Peckham. Matt suffered no significant inuries. Lap 14 saw defending track champion Gary Saathoff overtake Jochum for fourth and then move up to 3rd on lap 17. Legg was the winner, but no interview was conducted.

The Valentino’s IMCA Hobby Stocks then came out for their feature. The first lap saw last week’s winner, John Cain, roll his #44 on the back stretch. After his racer was righted the first one back to the flag stand was the 44L of Andrew Lewis followed by Tim LaPointe’s 18, Chad Fegley’s 13F and the 29 of Tim Kozak the top 4. Fegley got past LaPointe on lap 2. The next circuit saw Garrett Bolander move the 98X into the fourth spot. The next lap both LaPointe and Lewis spun on the front stretch. That made the running order Fegley, Bolander, Kozak and the 92 of Don Hall Jr. Just as the field began to circle the track for a restart the skies opened up and ended the evening’s racing.

The Nebraska Drive Shaft & Radiator IMCA Modified and Exhaust Pros IMCA Sport Compact features from Saturday will be held on June 2nd.

The remainder of the Valentino’s IMCA Hobby Stock Feature and the A Feature for the Budweiser 360 Sprints will be held next Saturday when the Nebraska Lottery and Busch Light present the Memorial Day Super-Ganza. The pit area will be open from 3:30 until 5 P.M. to allow the fans to visit with, get autographs from or take pictures with the drivers. Cool J DJ will be in the pits at the same time. The Nebraska Lottery will be on site all night long, as will Shades the Clown from 5 until 8. There will be a Busch Light Happy Hour in the courtyard from 6 until 7 and Village Inn will have the Dunk Tank Challenge in the courtyard also. After the regular racing concludes there will be Chain Gang racing. Then, head on out to the pits again for more music by Cool J DJ until midnight.

The front gates will open 2 hours early at 3:30 with hot laps starting at 5:30 and racing at 6:30. Front gate admission is just $10 for adults, youths 6-12 are $5 and children 5 and under are free.

Pit gates also open early at 3:00 with pit passes costing $20.

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