Chris Harmon Takes The World 300 At
The Sportsdrome Speedway
By: Harold Adams
 Jeffersonville,
IN (October 11, 2009) - It was
the final weekend of racing at the Sportsdrome Speedway. The
World 300 consisted of 2 days of action starting on Saturday
with qualifying and qualifying races for the Xtreme Winged Figure
8 World 300 cars. Gerry Isgrigg set fast time with a lap of
20.439. Cory Harmon won the first qualifying heat and therefore
would have the pole for the main event on Sunday. Other qualifying
heat winners were Mike Berry and Josh Logsdon. On Sunday, the
31 car field started 3-wide on the tight quarter-mile asphalt
track. In the feature, the race was full of action early on with
lots of close crossover misses and plenty of fender banging.
The race was first stopped on lap 2 for Zeke Skaggs who got stuck
in the mud near the track. Then, another strong contender Rick
Heine, got tangled with Cory Harmon forcing him to the pits on
lap 8. Meanwhile, Chris Harmon was pacing the race with Artie
Ware right behind him. Then on lap 18, Mike Berry had problems
and was stranded near the track bringing out another red. On
lap 18, Ware made a pass and slipped into the lead. Then, after
another race stoppage, Gerry Isgrigg who had won the last 2 big
races for this division, suddenly went out with a broken timing
chain. Also, Chris Harmon retook the lead away from Ware as they
continued their battle for the top spot. Then on lap 45, we had
our only intersection crash of the race involving Josh Logsdon
and Dalibor Mitrovich. Both cars were out of the event with heavy
damage. Another red came out on lap 62 and this time Ware jumped
out to the lead on the restart. In this enduro style race, each
driver is required to pit at least once to refuel and take on
new tires if they wish. Ware pitted on lap 170 and only went
down one lap to Chris Harmon. Then, Harmon pitted on lap 188
and came back out on the next lap about 8 car lengths ahead of
Ware. A couple of drivers having good runs had some bad luck
creep up on them. Raymond Johnson had rearend problems and dropped
out on lap 191 while running 5th. Then 4 laps later, Jeff Harmon,
who was running 3rd, dropped out with mechanical problems as
well. Chris Harmon continued to lead the race with Artie Ware
staying about a straightaway behind. Ware started seeing smoke
coming from his machine on lap 214 but continued at about the
same pace. This was transmission issues that were upon him, but
he kept going in his strong 2nd place position. Then near the
end of the race, Ware slowed and limped into the pits on lap
288 with rearend issues forcing him out for good. This pretty
much sealed the deal for Harmon, as he went on to take the checkered
flag. Mark Harmon ended up 2nd at 6 laps down. Ware, even though
he missed the last 12 laps, still got a 3rd place out of it.
Gerald Poe ran 4th and Chris Workman ran 5th in his Dromer car.
 In
other action on this final weekend, the Chuck Winders Memorial
100 for Oval Xtreme cars was held on Saturday with a field of
28 cars taking the green flag. Fast qualifier Allan Williams
Jr jumped out in the lead while season points champion Tommy
Brown Jr had some issues early and eventually dropped out of
the race on lap 20. On lap 5, Rodney Bruce was putting the heat
on the leader, when the 2 of them made contact on the backstretch
sending Williams into a big slide thru the infield. James Wayne
while running 2nd, looked like he may have challenged Bruce,
but he slowed and was out on lap 45. A nice battle for 2nd, 3rd,
and 4th waged on the rest of the way between Gerry Isgrigg, Troy
Phillips, and Williams. Rodney Bruce went on to take the victory
with Isgrigg holding on to 2nd followed by Phillips and Williams.Chris
Bailey rounded out the top 5.
 In
the Dromer Oval feature, an all time low of 13 cars made the
start for their 20 lap event. But it turned out to be the most
entertaining race of the night. A lot of wrestling for positions
culminated in a wild final lap. On the backstretch during lap
18, the leader Dave Parsons, came up on a slower car and went
high. The 2nd place car of Ronnie Basham III went low into turn
3 and emerged as the leader taking the white flag.. As they went
into turns 1 and 2, the two cars made lots of contact but did
not spin. It appeared that Craig Rogers, the 3rd place car or
Chris Workman in 4th would move around them as they beat on one
another. But they both bolted ahead with Parsons inching out
the victory with Basham in 2nd. Rogers was 3rd, Workman 4th,
and Jeff Bissinger 5th.
 In
the FWD Oval feature, it was once again, Billy Higgins taking
the honors for his 5th oval win to go with 2 figure 8 tallies.
He had to sweat this one out though, as the 55 car of Jim
Butner was right behind him at the end
and settled for 2nd. Josh Mann was 3rd, Frank Stevenson 4th and
Jason Zollman in 5th.
World 300
1st - 6 Chris Harmon
2nd- 35 Mark Harmon
3rd - 38 Artie Ware
4th - 91 Gerald Poe
5th - 46 Chris Workman
6th - 3 Harold Murphy
7th - 81 Willard Clark
8th - 95 Chris Stewart
9th - 26 Jeff Harmon
10th - 0 Raymond Johnson
11th - 51 Mike Berry
12th - 17 Earl Riley
13th - 79D Allen Douglas
14th - 75 John OBryan
15th - 56 Donnie Blanchard
16th - 27 Rick Heine
17th 20 BJ Lord -
18th -86 Jake McFelea
19th -69 Craig Rogers
20th- 33 John Groulx
21st- 99 Dalimor Mitrovich
22nd-73 Gary Hall
23rd 42 Josh Logsdon
24th -34 Ronnie Basham III
25th- 30 Tim McDonald
26th- 16 Cory Harmon
27th-5 Gerry Isgrigg
28th- 15 Zeke Skaggs
29th- 44 Jerry Ilari
30th- 77 Brian Ziegler
31st- 79 Larry Curry
Chuck Winders Memorial 100:
1st- 31 Rodney Bruce
2nd- 69 Gerry Isgrigg
3rd- 77 Troy Phillips
4th- 85 Allan Williams
5th- 90 Mike Bailey
6th-58 Vince Smith
7th- 24 Jeff Corbett
8th-46 Troy Courtney
9th- 44 Scott LeBlanc
10th- 46D Chris Workman
11th- 26 Craig Rogers
12th- 74 Jeff Elliott
13th 14 Roscoe Thompson
14th- 86D Theo Shelton
15th- 7 Troy Moore
16th-21 Matt Cranmer
17th- 36 Bryan Mantooth
18th- 34 Ronnie Basham III
19th- 25 James Wayne
20th- 17 Raemen Riley
21st- 99 Dalibor Mitrovich
22nd- 81 Willard Clark
23rd- 11 Nick Johnson
24th- 42 Nick Reed
25th- 30 Mark Bayens
26th- 12 Tommy Brown Jr
27th- 33 John Lee
28th- 56 Donnie Blanchard
DNS- 20 Marcus Elliott
FWD Oval 20 Lap Feature:
1st - 27 Billy Higgins
2nd - 55 Jim Butner
3rd - 18 Josh Mann
4th - 2 Frank Stevenson
5th - 1 Jason Zollman
6th - 12 Anthony Parrish
7th - 7 Colt Moore
8th - 93 Billy Saylor
9th - 67 Jeff Davis
10th - 17 William Chism
11th - 15 Brian Ferguson
12th - 94 Carl Sullivan
13th - 71 Cody Winters
14th - 43 Paul Franzell
15th - 72 Chris Redemann
17th - 56 Dillard Neighbors
18th - 26 Jeff Laws Jr
19th - 6 Scott Bruner
20th - 20 Mike Cottrell
21st - 9 Dale Clary Jr
DNS- 0 Ray Crain Jr.
DNS- 70 Donnie Garmon
Dromer Oval 20 Lap Feature:
1st- 79 Dave Parsons .
2nd- 34 Ronnie Basham III
3rd- 6 Craig Rogers
4th- 46 Chris Workman Sr.
5th- 12 Jeff Bissinger
6th- 21 Trevor Cranmer
7th- 59 Nick Cook
8th- 42 ?
9th- 86 Theo Shelton
10th- 77 Brian Ziegler
11th- 19 Tim Donahoo
12th- 75 James Goodman
13th- 25 Chris Anderson
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