Brenner happy to win

By ED TURNER
Published: May 19, 2008

Adam Brenner snagged his second win of the season in Late Models at Old Dominion Speedway Saturday night in a 75-lap race.   

“I’m real happy with the win,” said Brenner, who is second in points. “We’ve won half the races now, so I can’t complain.”

Brenner, who started on the outside pole, took the lead early from Don Bauer in turn two and held on to the checkers, despite pressure from Willard Lawrence. The win puts Brenner 18 markers behind points’ leader Lawrence, who also has two wins, as well as two seconds.

By lap 25, Lawrence, who started sixth after taking the pole and who has won two straight races, passed Bauer for second and soon closed on Brenner.  Brenner, however, was able to keep ahead of Lawrence. 

“My spotter was really crucial to me,” Brenner said. “He would let me know when Lawrence was making a charge so I could step it up or when he was cooling his tires so I could do the same.”

Robert Bruce took home third. Les Miranda finished fourth for his fourth top five of the year and Mike Southard snagged his first top five of the season with a fifth.

Miranda and Southard put on a show when they raced door-to-door for two laps at the end, with Miranda edging Southard by a bumper at the checkers. 

“I had a great run,” said Southard, who started eighth and dropped back to 11th after being bumped at one point. “If I’d had another nine feet, I’d have won that battle. But it was good racing. Every position I got, I worked for.” 

In Legends, Roger Austin, Jr. grabbed his second win of the year.  Austin, who qualified second, started fifth. He powered his way around Kristine Keys for the lead by lap 10. 

“It was definitely a sweet win and a challenging night,” Austin said. “We’ve had a couple of bad nights this season. So it was definitely good to be back in the winner’s circle.”

Jason Simmons took second, his best finish at the track this season. And David Polenz rebounded from an oil slick spinout to make it back to third by the end. Dave Daniels also spun from the oil and crashed into Matt Cannon and was taken to the hospital with a possible concussion.

“It was big getting back to third,” Polenz said. “That meant we were able to keep our points lead.”

In U-Cars, Bryan Fox racked up his third win of the season. Fox started seventh and, despite having a bout of walking pneumonia, was able to battle his way through the field and take second by lap 10. He couldn’t get around Ingle, however, and had to bide his time till the closing laps when he engaged in a door-to-door battle to get around him. 

“It feels pretty good right now to have won,” Fox said. “I hope to get more wins by the end of the season. I was pretty weak as the race went on and had to be assisted out of the car at the end because of the pneumonia.”   

Billy Ingle, who started last because he won the previous race, came in second after going head-to-head with Fox.

“Bryan has got the fastest car right now,” Ingle said. “There’s no doubt about it. I call him gorilla arms because he tries so hard. And we found out just how tough he is tonight.”

By lap 15, Ingle had taken the lead from Amber Adams, who led her first laps and finished fifth. Greg Sites was third and Steve Maples fourth.

In Mini Stocks, Bobby Able notched his third win of the season. Able took the lead from Mike Carte, the previous race’s winner, who came in second.  Able recovered from a run-in from Scotty Gore early in the race when the two got together accidentally. Gore wound up third.

Late Models:

Adam Brenner

Willard Lawrence

Robert Bruce

Les Miranda

Mike Southard

Kevin Hall

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