Zautner Does It Again!!!
They were at it again, race fans! This time the Sure Fire drivers were in Iowa for a night of beatin 'n banging for a 100-lap feature. But first they had to prove themselves worthy of that task. The night started out with the #66 Nick Zaunter for the second week in a row, taking a fast time of 27.405.
To start the night off, a four lap dash of your four fastest qualifiers: #66 Nick Zaunter, #77 Justin Anderson, #4 Shane Gross and the #46 Jim Whaley Jr. These four drivers battled hard for these four laps, but a last lap bump between Nick Zaunter and Jim Whaley Jr. opened up the door for Justin Anderson to come barreling thru the middle, splitting these two drivers and taking the win at the line.
Heat #1 win went to the #51 Paul "Buzz" Cohen who drove with determination and wasn't going to let anything stop him. Heat #2 went to the #071 Dean Viney, who when he discovered that he had the lead, pulled away from the rest and was heard laughing as he crossed the finish line.
For your main event, a 100-lap feature race, 14 drivers took the green flag, but they knew that only one would bring home the checkers. It was the #72 John Estes on the pole along with the #14 Craig Hawkins occupying the front row. The green flag would drop and it was green flag racing till Lap 19 when the caution flag came out for the first time of the night. The #1 Robert Underwood drove in too deep and rear-ended your fast qualifier, #66 Nick Zaunter, causing him to "fishtail" and sent into the path of #071 Dean Viney. The #27 Terry Walters was also collected in this incident as Viney's car rolled down the track towards the infield.
The caution flag comes out again on Lap 25, as your race leader #14 Craig Hawkins comes out of Turn 4 and slaps the outside wall bouncing him into the #46 Jim Whaley Jr. The #1 of Robert Underwood was also damaged in this mishap requiring some extensive pit repairs.
Lap 32 sees the #071 Dean Viney and the #51 Paul Cohen clipping each other and sending Cohen into a spin in Turn 2, but this does not bring out the caution, so it is continued green flag racing. In Turn 3 of Lap 41, it is the #1 Robert Underwood and the #85 Trevor Malone trading paint and sending Malone into a spin and collecting the #14 Craig Hawkins.
The caution flag is in the air once again on Lap 66 as the #77 Justin Anderson, at full speed, gets into the side of the #1 Robert Underwood, taking with them the #46 Jim Whaley Jr. and the #4 Shane Gross.
The last 30 laps were hard, green flag racing for all drivers except for Zaunter, Anderson and Gross who each of them were in their own zip codes way out in front of the rest of the Sure Fire drivers. On the last lap coming out of Turn 2, 4th place, #57 James Tyler and 5th place, #46 Jim Whaley Jr. bump and bang each other allowing multiple cars to pass them for positions.
Congratulations again to Nick Zaunter for his win for the second week in a row. 2nd place goes to #77 Justin Anderson and 3rd place to #4 Shane Gross. #071 Dean Viney brings it home in 4th place and #27 Terry Walters rounds out the top 5.
Next week, December 19, Sure Fire comes to the Langley Speedway for their last race of 2015 in the Saturday Night Showdown series, but will pick back up on January 9, 2016.
