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Howland Dominates Patriot Event at
Rolling Wheels Upon registering at the beginning of the night, each driver draws a number or has a number drawn for them to determine their starting spot in the heats. Bryan Howland, a driver notorious for poor heat draws, ended up having number one pulled for him, putting the local driver from Auburn on the pole for heat one. During the drivers meeting, a pill was drawn at random to give away a MAC Tools Makita saw. The number drawn was one and the saw went to Howland. It would be that kind of night for “Flyin’ Bryan”. The Patriot Sprint Group was well represented at the first ever “Sprint Car Spectacular” at Rolling Wheels Raceway Park with 40 cars on hand, the strongest showing for the club in over a year and a half. The non-conflicting date, plus the opportunity to run in conjunction with the World of Outlaws contributed to the field. 360 drivers were not allowed to run the same car in both events because it is not among WoO procedure. This did not matter though because there were 33 410’s on hand for the World of Outlaws event. Still, drivers wanted to show their stuff in front of a large crowd and sprint car racing’s finest. Because of the strong showing, an additional heat and C-Main was added to the program. Bryan Howland won heat one over Tim Zimbardi with Jessica Zemken finishing third; an impressive run for the rookie sprint car competitor, but there would be more to come later in the night. Dave Ely roared up from his seventh starting spot to pick up the win in heat two. The major incident of this event involved Rich Swarthout and George Suprick when Swarthout, who was working back up to full speed after nearly spinning, clipped Suprick as the 2004 PSG Champion was passing by. This would send both drivers to the C-Main. Bobby Breen won his second-straight heat over Ray Preston, Jeff VanDusen and Rick Wilson. Glenn Styres picked up the win of heat four over his fellow countryman Kyle Wilson. The most notable point of this race took place in turn three when “Cobra” Chuck Hebing clipped the inside barrier and spun to a stop in the infield. He would have to work from the back of the C-Main and had a long road a head of him. In the C-Main, George Suprick led the whole way over Chuck Hebing and Rich Swarthout to move their way to the back of the B-Main. The race went green-to-checkered. In the B-Main, Jeff Cook started on pole after Nick Fratto was not able to fire his No. F1 and took advantage of the spot by leading the 10-lap event to transfer into the A-Main. Jared Zimbardi, hard chargers Billy Coffey and Chuck Hebing rounded out the four transfer spots. Among those not to qualify for the A-Main were J.R. Stewart, Rich Swarthout and George Suprick; the first race Surpick has ever not qualified for with the Patriots. Jeremy Barnard also did not qualify after flipping his No. 86 over the banking in turn three. Only six drivers were redraw eligible for their A-Main starting spots because the rest were not in the prior PSG race at Canandaigua. Tim Zimbardi drew the pole position and did not even think about taking the Patriot Power Challenge as he had a prime spot for his first career win. Bryan Howland drew the outside pole. The red flag waved with one lap complete when the No. 3 of rookie Jim Livingston made contact with the right rear of Jeff Cook, sending the B-Main winner for a wild flip in turn one. Cook’s No. 10 would get near 10-feet off the ground and came to rest upside-down. He would get out of the car on his own and suffered only a sore back. The only other caution of the night came out on lap six when Geoff Quackenbush spun his No. 25 in turn three. From that point on, it was a dominating run by Bryan Howland. Holwand, who inherited the lead on lap three from Tim Zimbardi checked out from the rest of the pack and quickly caught lapped traffic. He lapped up to the 11th place car by the end of the run and would end up winning his 2nd career A-Main by nearly eight seconds. “Words can’t even describe this right now,” said the 18-year-old sophomore competitor in victory lane. “This car was just awesome all night and to win with the outlaws here and so close to home, this is just awesome.” This is the second-straight run for Howland at this event that has been a major point in his career. When the World of Outlaws came to Rolling Wheels in 2004, Howland made the field for the A-Main, something no 360’s did this year. He is now the point leader with the Patriot Sprint Group. While Howland was checking out from the field, the battles were hot and heavy behind him. Ray Preston had his best race of the year, getting around Zimbardi for second and safely hanging on to the position. Third was Dave Ely who also finished third in his only other race with the Patriots at the Five Mile Point Speedway on April 16; in that race, Howland also went on to win. The story of the night was Jessica Zemken who finished fourth in her first Patriot Sprint Group start in only her second 360 race. Zemken, the defending sportsman champion at the Utica-Rome Speedway, started in 10th, but quickly moved up into the top five in her Patterson Motorsports No. 33z. “The car was pretty good, I felt really good in the car, and just paced myself around the bottom,” said the Sprakers driver. “I just had to slow down to go fast. Just ran my own race and it worked out pretty good for me.” Rounding out the top-five was Rick Wilson who fought for that spot the entire race with Chuck Hebing. Wilson started 15th and Hebing started 24th but quickly made their way into the top-10. Hebing got around Wilson on a number of occasions but Wilson ultimately made the high-side prevail and got around the final set of lapped traffic just ahead of Hebing. Still it was a great run for the “Cobra” to finish sixth. “We had a good run, to come from the C-Main it’s not to bad,” said the Ontario, NY driver. “Me and Rick Wilson had a heck of a race out there, we even touched at one point.” This is the second time in Hebing’s short sprint career that he has come from the C-Main to finish in the top-10 of an A-Main. This race kicks off a busy weekend for the Patriot Sprint Group where the points will really begin to take shape. After the fourth race of the season, Howland has retaken the points lead over Hebing. George Suprick has slipped back to third. For more from this exciting night of racing, make sure to listen to the Patriot Re-Broadcast on Oval1.com, the achieves on the Dirt Radio Network, Hot Wings: Sprint Car News and Talk, also on Oval1.com for comprehensive coverage from the “Sprint Car Spectacular”, including interviews with Bryan Howland, Jessica Zemken, Brian Paulus, Cody Geldart and Erin Crocker. For anything else Patriot, log onto PatriotSprintGroup.com.
Results for Bobcat of Buffalo Patriot
Sprint Group presented by Tom Neamon/ MAC Tools. Heat Results (8 Laps)- 1- Bryan Howland, T. Zimbardi, Zemken, Wickham, Faigle. 2- Dave Ely, Lane, Bl. Breen, Donath, Livingston. 3- Bobby Breen, Preston, VanDusen, R. Wilson, Drum. 4- Glenn Styres, K. Wilson, Podolak, Quackenbush, Adamczyk. C-Main (8 Laps, 4 Transfer to B-Main) - George Suprick, Hebing, Swarthout, Moffit. B-Main (10 Laps, 4 Transfer to A-Main) – Jeff Cook, J. Zimbardi, Coffey, Hebing. A-Main (20 Laps)- BRYAN HOWLAND, Ray Preston, Dave Ely, Jessica Zemken, Rick Wilson, Chuck Hebing, Tim Zimbardi, Blake Breen, Craig Lane, Jeff VanDusen, Kyle Drum, Bobby Breen, R.C. Faigle, Jared Zimbardi, Billy Coffey, Dave Wickham, Don Adamczyk, Geoff Quackenbush, Glenn Styres, Bobby Podolak, Shaun Donath, Kyle Wilson, Jeff Cook, Jim Livingston. Lap Leaders- T. Zimbardi 1-3, Howland 4-20. DNQ: Stewart, Swarthout, Suprick, Troutman, Regina, Muhleisen, Shuttleworth, Barnard, Singer, G. Ely, Deming, T. Wickham. |