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Auto Racing: At Illiana
Weltmeyer all smiles on Opening Night
As reported Sunday, April 16, 2006 In the Daily Southtown
http://www.dailysouthtown.com/southtown/dssports/pro/162sd8.htm
By Tony Baranek
Staff writer
SCHERERVILLE, Ind. — Dave Weltmeyer unveiled his newest late-model car Saturday night at Illiana Speedway.
It ran like a lot of his old ones.
The "Dyer Flyer" got his 2006 season off to a magnificent start, taking the lead early and capturing the Opening Night main event for the second year in a row.
"It's a brand new Lefthander Chassis, a 2006 Monte Carlo, and it has an awesome (Joe) Rhyne engine in it," a smiling Weltmeyer said.
"Winning tonight was what we needed after crashing in the last race of the year (in 2005) in the Bettenhausen. Everybody's pumped up. I think we'll be OK."
Weltmeyer came from the third row to track down and pass Mike White for the lead on lap 11. He then beat late-model rookie Jeff Cannon by 0.282 seconds for the victory.
It was a banner opener for Cannon, who finished second in the Mid-American Division points race in 2005 and made his late-model debut in the Bettenhausen Classic last September. During the stretch run Saturday, Cannon not only held off White for second place, but gained some ground on Weltmeyer during a couple of laps.
"It was a good run for everybody who helped on this car," Cannon said. "There is a numerous list of them. It was good, clean racing as far as it looked to me. I was just happy that I could be competitive."
Third place in the feature went to White. Defending track champ Pat Kelly, Mike Monroe and Bobby Gash completed the top six.
The race was interrupted on lap 4 when John Nutley got loose down the front stretch and spun sideways to the infield. His No. 96 car went up on two wheels before coming back down and sliding into an infield barrier. Nutley was uninjured, but the front end of the car sustained heavy damage.
"My spotters told me that Pat Kelly took me out," Nutley said. "I know he was on the inside one time and I'm sure nobody else passed him out there. I just got taken out, and the car is wrecked pretty bad.
"It could have been worse. It was airborne. At one time it went silent inside when the engine went dead. When it went through the infield I was hoping to miss the cement barrier. But the front end scrubbed the barrier and wrecked the stub."
Kelly said he was running behind Weltmeyer when the contact with Nutley occurred.
"I definitely got into him," Kelly said. "But if I took him out, it wasn't intentional. I was right behind David. He had just gone by him and I was following through. I did get up to John's door. I don't know if John took a left or I drove up into him, but by all means it was nothing intentional.
"I hate to see the guy wreck his car. I just talked to him (Friday) and he was telling me how hard he was working on it Thursday. I'm not going to take people out out of pure ignorance."
Jack Kalwasinski won over Phil Splant in a dramatic limited late-model feature that saw the two side by side up front for most of the 25 laps. Kalwasinski made the winning pass on lap 23. Dave Gentile was third, followed by Andy Marchiniak, Mike Marden and Kevin McCann.
Len Koprowski appeared to be a runaway winner in the 25-lap Mid-American feature, but his No. 8 was disqualified for a weight infraction after a postrace inspection. The win was awarded to John Fiorita, over John Marshall and Shawn Matthuis.
The turbo stox main event was captured by Ryan Moore, with Tommy Prim second and Bill Serviss third.
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Last updated:
05/08/06.