O'Gara goes wire to wire at Salem
Danny O’Gara in victory lane at Salem Speedway (Aaron Skillman photo)
By Ken de la Bastide
SALEM – For the second time in three races youngster Danny O'Gara scored the Kenyon Midget Series at the historic southern Indiana oval. O'Gara, driving the Peterman Brothers sponsored Midget, for the second consecutive race pulled the number on pill for the feature start.
At the start O'Gara took the lead from Dameron Taylor chased by Eli Fox and Ayrton Houk.
On lap six both Fox and Houk got around Taylor for the second and third spots while O'Gara was able to maintain a comfortable lead. Houk, the current championship point leader, passed Fox on lap 13 when the two encountered slower traffic. From there Houk started to close on O'Gara, but came up a half-second short with Fox, Taylor and Andrew Wall rounding out the top five.
Isaac Johnson was running fourth near the mid-point of the race when he got forced high coming off the second corner and finished tenth.
“The team gave me a good car,” O'Gara said in the Jeff Hill Trailer Sales Victory Lane. He did a masterful job of avoiding the large tires marking the inside of the oval and in passing the lapped traffic.
Houk said it was his first time racing at Salem Speedway as he continued to maintain his hold on the championship point lead over Johnson and Evan Hammond. “We started back in sixth,” he said of the Wing & Wheel Foundation sponsored Midget. “If there had been another five or ten laps I might have challenged for the win. I'm just trying to keep the points for the championship,” Houk said.
Fox finished third in the Viking Custom Power Coating Midget and said racing at Salem Speedway was a “lot of fun”. He started fourth in the feature race and fell back from Houk and O'Gara in lapped traffic. “I was happy to bring it home third.”
Houk captured the K&K Marketing Fast Qualifying award with a new track record of 14.329 seconds, which barely beat the mark set a year ago by Landon Brown at 14.331-seconds.
O'Gara and Houk won the KRJ Racing Products heat races and Houk earned the Advanced Racing Suspensions Hard Charger award for advancing four spots.
O'Gara won the BHR Performance Rookie of the Race honors for the third time.
________
RESULTS:
KRJ Race Products Heat 1: 1. Houk, 2. Fox, 3. Taylor, 4. Hammond, 5. Tozer, 6. Petty, 7. Richardson, 8. Sheard
KRJ Race Products Heat 2: 1. O’Gara, 2. Johnson, 3. Patton, 4. Wall, 5. Peri, 6. Shilkuski, 7. Stiles
Feature: 1. O’Gara, 2. Houk, 3. Fox, 4. Taylor, 5. Wall, 6. Tozer, 7. Hammond, 8. Peri, 9. Petty, 10. Johnson, 11. Richardson, 12. Shilkuski, 13. Stiles, 14. Patton, 15. Sheard (DNS)