Strickland and Newcomb Doubles Down on Wednesday Season
WATERFORD – The second half of the Speedbowl Wednesday night program is officially underway and it kicked off with some of the finest racing we’ve seen all season. The night started off with Brad Strickland returning to Victory Lane in the INEX Bandoleros, followed by William Rheaume picking up his second win of the season in the Super X-Car division. Christian Herman is now 3 for 4 in X-Car starts this season, while Isaiah Newcomb returned to Victory Lane in the INEX Legends cars.
Though quickly clearing third and fourth place, Brad Strickland had Milania Shilosky on his bumper for the entire feature event of the Bandoleros. Every few laps she would take a peek to the outside but she never quite had the opportunity to make the move which allowed Strickland to add another Victory Lane to his Speedbowl resume and close in on Milania’s current points lead.
Super X-Cars took to the track next with David Ciastko and Bud Kuehne on the front row. Both Mitch Bombard and Devin Tate quickly made their way to the top two spots and Devin would remain here for the majority of the race while Mitch would eventually fall back due to continuing car handling issues that have plagued him over the last few weeks. Bill Rheaume, a recent feature event winner, would follow Tate and Bombard through a few laps later to secure third place and begin challenging for the lead. A spin with five laps to go from Pipper Beal would restock the field and setup for an exciting conclusion. After the green flag fell back onto the field, David Ciastko was sent spinning down the frontstrech bringing out another yellow with five laps remaining. After a quick bunching up of the field, the green would fly for the final time and all five laps featured an intense battle between the top two cars of Devin Tate and Bill Rheaume. Rolling the bottom, Bill was able to hold off the outside line led by Tate and secure the victory by a close margin of 0.146.
After two surprising heat winners in Josh Piper and Rich Nye, the X-Car feature was set to be an exciting one. Within the first five laps, Christian Herman found himself in the lead of the race. After the aforementioned pole sitter, Rich Nye’s engine expired, a red flag was brought out with fourteen to go that would stack the field back up. Despite the occasional challenge from Pete Zaikarite and newcomer Ryan Magliano, Herman would remain in the lead and go on to win his third race in four attempts this season.
INEX Legends ended off the night and once again put on a stellar show under the lights. The action really picked up late in the race as Isaiah Newcomb battled then leader Brody Monahan. Fighting on his outside, and even dropping back at one point, Newcomb was able to get around Brody on lap 21 and never looked back. Brody believed he could have held him off, as stated in his post-race interview, but the car’s handling began to fade as the run ran on and wasn’t able to keep up with the better handling Newcomb machine.
The Speedbowl is back in action on Saturday August 6th with the 100 lap Monaco Modified Tri-Track Series return, and 4 weekly divisions. Then again next Wednesday August 10th for our first Autograph August night of the season featuring Legend Car and Bandolero drivers, the American Vintage Modifieds, and a Kids Power Wheels race. Keep up with us at www.speedbowlct.com, on Facebook at The New London-Waterford Speedbowl, or on Twitter @SpeedbowlCT.
RESULTS
INEX Bandoleros (20 Laps): 1. 84JR-Brad Strickland[1]; 2. 99-Milania Shilosky[3]; 3. 9-Trenton Starkweather[2]; 4. 10-Allyha DeSomma[4]
Super X-Cars (25 Laps): 1. 43-William Rheaume[6]; 2. 14-Devin Tate[4]; 3. 76-Dave Yardley[8]; 4. 88-Ben Castro[5]; 5. 24-Sean Skinner[7]; 6. 10-Mitch Bombard[3]; 7. 41-Toby Leonard[10]; 8. 38-Donald “Bud” Kuehne[2]; 9. 5-John Nunes[12]; 10. 12-David Ciastko[1]; 11. 2-Caity DeSomma[9]; 12. 30-Pipper Beal[11]; 13. 25-William Reiman[14]; 14. 78-Jeremey Washburn[13]
X-Cars (25 Laps): 1. 9-Christian Herman[8]; 2. 07-Pete Zaikarite Jr[7]; 3. 02-Ryan Magliano[10]; 4. 27-Corey Caddick[6]; 5. 45CT-Josh Piper[2]; 6. 7X-Wade Robbins[4]; 7. 26-Steven Talaba[9]; 8. 12-Bruce Sperry[3]; 9. 01CT-Chuck McDonald[5]; 10. 47-Grant Spaulding[14]; 11. 42-Chris Palamar[11]; 12. 31-Matthew Tumolo[13]; 13. 93-Richard Nye[1]; 14. 56-Keith McDonald[16]; 15. 13-Matt Martel[12]; 16. (DNS) 11-Tim Burgess
INEX Legend Cars (25 Laps): 1. 22-Isaiah Newcomb[3]; 2. 31-Brody Monahan[1]; 3. 33-Shileigh Martinez[2]; 4. 14Z-Zachary Martinez[4]; 5. 99-Dustin Gagne[6]; 6. 77-Dennis Pantani[5]; 7. 91-Riley Paul[7]
