Lightning Strikes Again As Bennett Notches 5th Slinger Nationals
Title
By: Gregg Paul
(Slinger, WI) July 11, 2010 -
Lightning can have many connotations. It can be the flash of light
in a thunderstorm. It can represent speed. It can represent doom.
During the 31st annual Miller Lite Slinger Nationals presented
by SuperSeal, lightning covered each of those scenarios. Lightning
also happens to be the nick name of Lowell Bennett, who scored
his record tying fifth win in this prestigious event at the Slinger
Super Speedway.
After battling intermittent rain showers all day, Bennett was
the beneficiary in a bizarre if not controversial turn of events
with nine laps to go in the 200 lap feature. Bennett was almost
speechless at how things turned out.
“I was all ready to set myself just to be happy with third,” said
Bennett. “I thought that’s all we had. We had that
yellow and I thought ‘Well, things happen on a yellow’.
Things did happen on a yellow.”
The things that Bennett referred to were things that could be
construed as bizarre as well as controversial.
NASCAR star Kyle Busch seemed to be cruising towards an easy victory
when the caution came out with nine laps to go. Brad Dahmer got
a piece of Conrad Morgan going into turn one, causing Morgan to
spin. That cost Busch his nearly half a straightaway lead and bunched
up the field for a double file restart.
Dennis Prunty, who had been following Busch in second place since
lap 81, suddenly found himself on the outside for the restart,
while Lowell Bennett was behind Busch in third place.
This is where the bizarre part comes into play.
As the field made its way down the backstretch coming to the green,
Busch’s car started to swerve, as if he was more violently
scrubbing his tires. Entering turn three where the cars normally
accelerate to the green, Busch suddenly slowed as Prunty took off.
Sparks then began to fly from underneath Busch’s car as he
had blown a right front tire and the suspension parts scraped the
ground.
Once the cars hit the start/finish line, the restart was instantly
aborted and Busch worked his way back to his hauler, done for the
night.
Now this is where the controversy stepped in.
Since Busch was the leader and pulled off the track due to his
mechanical failure, it was thought that everyone would just move
up a position for the subsequent restart. However, the official
scoring ruled that the inside row where Busch was lined up, would
just move up one spot as opposed to the actual running order moving
up one spot.
This allowed Lowell Bennett to “jump” from third place
into the lead for the restart. Once the cars came back to the green,
Prunty spun his tires from the outside lane and got his car completely
sideways before saving it. Bennett got a much smoother restart,
and was able to hold off both Prunty and Ross Kenseth to the checkers.
Prunty was visibly angry at the decision and didn’t want
to talk about it afterwards.
“Don’t even come talk to me, I’m so (expletive
deleted) pissed right now,” said Prunty after the race. “How
does the third place car get to the lead on a yellow?”
Yet to get to that point we need to get back to the beginning.
Kyle Busch set fast time in qualifying with a blistering 11.185
lap. A lap that fast hadn’t been seen since the track was
repaved in 1994 when Tony Strupp set the track record. Fellow NASCAR
driver and two time defending Nationals champion Matt Kenseth shared
the front row with a 11.254 lap. The cut off time of 11.453 just
to make the feature would normally set fast time on most nights
here at Slinger.
A seven car invert found 1999 Nationals winner Conrad Morgan on
the front row alongside Jon Reynolds Jr. As they came to the green
flag, which was waved by four time Nationals winner and short track
racing legend Dick Trickle, Morgan jumped out to the early advantage.
Kenseth found the high side to his liking and quickly worked his
way towards the front. By lap 8 he was up to third place and by
lap 11 he was in fourth. Only the fact that Morgan was able to
build up a slight lead kept Kenseth from taking over the lead before
lap 17.
Lowell Bennett followed Kenseth to the front and was in second
by lap 18. Kyle Busch wasn’t gaining spots as quickly and
found himself in fifth place. However, Ross Kenseth, Matt’s
seventeen year old son was making progress just like his dad, despite
starting deep in the field from a promoter’s option. Ross
made his way to sixteenth place by lap 18 and was definitely on
the move.
Meanwhile, it appeared that perhaps Matt would once again have
the car to beat as he began to stretch his lead. Yet lightning
would strike on lap 46 and the victim was Matt Kenseth himself.
The power steering hose would come loose, causing a fire in his
left front. While the fire was quickly extinguished at speed, it
was a harbinger of things to come. The broken hose led to a failure
of the power steering pump and forced Kenseth to end his night
on lap 79.
Kenseth’s misfortune became Busch’s fortune as shortly
after the restart Busch was able to take over the lead. A lead
he would stretch over the remaining 49 laps until the halfway break.
Coming to the break, Busch was backing off in an effort to keep
Dan Fredrickson on the lead lap. The move almost backfired, as
Dennis Prunty was able to reel in Busch and actually pull alongside
him on lap 97. However Busch was able to use Fredrickson as a pick
and narrowly held off Prunty at the break.
“Dan’s a friend of mine and I wanted to keep him on
the lead lap,” said Busch. “I was going for the Sportsman
of the Year award.”
The running order of lead lap cars at the break were, Kyle Busch,
Dennis Prunty, Lowell Bennett, Jeremy Lepak, Ross Kenseth, Conrad
Morgan, Brad Mueller, Brian Johnson Jr., Steve Apel, Dave Feiler,
Jon Reynolds Jr., Al Schill, Nathan Haseleu, and Dan Fredrickson.
After the ten minute break for adjustments, the racing resumed
with Busch reassuming the lead. In fact the top three would remain
the same until the yellow would come out on lap 191 and setting
the stage for the drama that ensued.
Busch, who seemingly has won every Super Late Model race that
he enters, seemed poised to take the win in this event as well.
However, as fate would have it, lightning would strike him down
and end his night just nine laps shy of another win.
Once Busch left the track and ended his night, it was Dennis Prunty
who seemed to be set to capture the biggest win of his career.
Yet the racing gods, or some unknown divine intervention, would
prevent that from happening.
When Prunty reluctantly accepted his spot on the restart, he still
had things reasonably under control. After all, he has said he
prefers the high sides on most nights, and on this night was already
running much better then Bennett had all night long. In fact, Bennett,
who was battling brake issues as his rear rotors were glowing brightly,
didn’t appear to be much of a threat for the win.
However, as they came to the green, Prunty spun his tires in the
marbles. That momentary lapse allowed Bennett to clear him and
set sail for his record tying victory in this prestigious event.
“When a car breaks they move that lane up,” explained
Bennett. “So that’s just the way that it went. I still
thought Dennis would be pretty tough on the outside and he usually
is. Our car was just awesome after that yellow. It took off, the
tires cooled down, we were set. If we had to race another twenty
or thirty laps we would’ve been in good shape.”
Even though the rear brake rotors were glowing brightly?
“I was a little tight and I had the rear brake wound in
the car and I was looking for more,” said Bennett. “I
couldn’t get enough rear brake in the car. There’s
with my setup that I just run more rear brake than most people,
and it seems to be working for us.”
Perhaps the most impressive run of the night came from Ross Kenseth,
who had to start the feature from the twenty-first starting position
with a promoter’s option. Kenseth quickly worked his way
through traffic on the high side and found himself in sixth place
at the halfway break. His progressed slowed in the second half,
as the adjustments that were made weren’t to his liking.
However, he was also a beneficiary of the Kyle Busch incident and
suddenly found himself in third with nine laps to go.
“We started 21st and I thought the car was absolutely perfect,” said
Kenseth. “Great off the corner and back on the gas, we passed
like 16 guys in the first hundred laps which was unbelievable.
We made one little adjustment to try to get it that much better
but it hurt us way too much. We were too tight to start the second
half of the race. I don’t know if we deserved third place
but we had the best car in the first half.”
Wayne Freimund picked up the win in the Late Model feature, getting
past Madhouse TV start Chris Flemming on the ninth lap. Flemming,
making his first start at Slinger in a Late Model, started on the
pole with Freimund on the outside. Flemming would lead the first
8 laps before his car got extremely loose, and allowed Freimund
to slip past on lap 9.
Chris Blawat wound up finishing in second place, while fast qualifier
Pat McIntee finished in third. Brad Dahmer, who finished 15th in
the Nationals in his Super Late Model, pulled double duty to get
fourth in the Late Models. Rob Meyer rounded out the top five.
Jonathan “Jon Boy” Brown, also from the Madhouse TV
show took the checkers in the Super Late Model semi feature. Brown
started the event from the seventh spot, and climbed his way to
the front quickly. He was in second place by lap 11 and made his
way around Travis Dassow for the lead on lap 21. From there he
was able to hold on for the win. Scott Schoeni would also get by
Dassow and finish second while Dassow took third. Brandon Hill
and Randy Schuler rounded out the top five.
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