Jason Martin Picks Up URSS Feature Win at DCRP

Mother Nature tried her best to stop the racing action at Dodge City Raceway Park Saturday afternoon, as rain showers moved through the area. Twenty-five teams made the trek to DCRP for the Southern Region race to do battle on the high-banked oval. Fans where treated to some old fashioned pedal to the metal racing action and when the Checkered Flag fell, the United Rebel Sprint Series saw it’s twentieth different winner of the 2008 Season as Jason Martin claimed his first URSS Feature win.

LaCrosse Kansas’s Craig Jecha led the field to the green and quickly jumped out to the lead with Willie Wynn, Richie Dewell, Keefe Hemel and Jeff Crook rounded out the top five at the end of lap one. Jecha started to stretch out his lead as the battle for the second, third and fourth heated up as Wynn, Dewell and Hemel where all jockeying for the spots. Hemel took the runner up spot on lap five as Wynn and Dewell followed in third and fourth. Lap six saw Jeff Crook and Brian Herbert pass Wynn to take over the fourth and fifth positions respectively.

Jason Martin broke into the top five on lap seven as he assumed the fourth spot, and set his sights on the leaders. Jecha had seen his lead slowly erode and on lap ten Hemel, Dewell, Martin and Herbert had closed the gap and where starting to pressure him. Lap twelve saw Jecha encounter lapped traffic, which allowed Hemel and Dewell to close to his back bumper. Going into turn three Dewell dove to the bottom of Jecha as Hemel went to the high-side, Hemel made contact with Jecha and flipped several times to bring out the red flag. Jecha was able to continue, Hemel was through for the night.

On the restart, Jecha resumed the lead with Martin hot on his heels followed by Dewell, Herbert and Crook. Martin pressured Jecha for the spot and took the point on lap fifteen, lap sixteen saw Dewell and Herbert over take Jecha forcing him back to the fourth spot. Herbert turned up the heat on Dewell as the pair kept Martin in the sights, Herbert took the spot away on lap nineteen and took off after the leader. Jeff Crook and Tanner Mullens made their way to the fourth and fifth positions respectively on lap twenty.

Herbert was a man on a mission as he wove his way through traffic and cut Martin’s lead down each lap, by lap twenty-two Herbert had made his way to Martins rear bumper. Herbert turned up the wick as he pushed his car to the edge trying to find a way around Martin. Mullens took over the fourth spot on lap twenty-three as he set his sights on third place Dewell. As the white flag fell for the field Herbert was poised to make his move as the pair hurdled down the backstretch and into turn three Herbert and Martin touched wheels as they made their bids for the win. Coming off turn four Martin pulled Herbert down the front stretch to claim his first URSS Feature win with Herbert, Dewell, Mullens and Crook rounding out the top five.

The Weld Racing Wheels “Hard Charger Award” went to Ty Williams who came from his seventeenth starting spot to finish in the seventh position.

 The Keizer Aluminum Racing Wheels B-Main Award went the Brian Herbert.

Heat Race winners were Keefe Hemel, Richie Dewell and Tyler Knight.

A-Main: 1-Jason Martin (1J), 2-Brian Herbert (97), 3-Richie Dewell (112), 4-Tanner Mullens (02), 5-Jeff Crook (52), 6-Tyler Knight (11K), 7-Ty Williams (1), 8-Smokey Fairbank (2), 9-Craig Jecha (17X), 10-Lance Davis (9DJ), 11-Darren Bowman (9B0, 12-Kirby Hagans (4), 13-Brooke Boyd (B2), 14-Brian May (8), 15-Steve Dalton (12), 16-Taylor Velasquez (21), 17-John Colbert (79C), 18-Van Kuhn (K3), 19-Willie Wynn (36W), 20-Keefe Hemel (11), 21-Brandon Fisher (14)