Elston and Lettow are IMCA Harris Clash Wednesday Victors
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
By Bob Wilson
Elston and Lettow are IMCA Harris Clash Wednesday Victors
KNOXVILLE, Iowa (July 8) After the opening night of the 18the annual Harris Clash was washed out by a heavy shower at race time, the second night of the new format ran off without conflict as Tommy Elston and Matt Lettow captured feature events at Knoxville Raceway Wednesday night.
It had been 12 years since the Deery Brothers had brought the IMCA Late Models to this central Iowa track and the 35-lap feature event proved to be a good one for the fans. Right off the bat pole sitter Jason Frankel took the lead and held it for six laps before the first caution flag. The yellow flagged incident was brought about when a car stalled up against the big Knoxville fences in turn three. Before the caution lights could come on, third running Barry Sorenson came flying into the turn and had no where to go except to crash into the stalled car.
When the race went green again, Jeff Aikey gave Frankel all he wanted and when they flew by the flag stand on lap seven, Aikey had the narrowest of leads. At the end of ten circuits Aikey could only manage a two car-length lead over the runner-up car. The two cars stayed close for the next twenty laps with Frankel always looking for Aikey to make a mistake. Through lap traffic over the course of nearly the entire distance there was never much of a gap between the two.
It was ten laps from the finish that Elston drove into the picture from his fifth row start. Little by little he began to cut into the lead of the first and second place cars. With a late race yellow and only a few laps to go, Elston was in a perfect spot to make a run at the leaders.
Lap 33 saw him take the low route in turns one and two to get past Frankel. The next lap Elston did the same as he disposed of Aikey for the lead. With just a half mile to go, Elston actually began to pull away from his nearest challenger, Aikey.
At the pay window Elston collected $2,000 for the win as Aikey took home $1,500 for second. Third paid $1,200 to Frankel while fourth running Fred Remley pocketed $1,000. Rob Toland was fifth.
The Second annual Sport Mods feature turned out to be a 4-car race from beginning to end. The 15-lap race saw only two leaders for the distance with Matt Lettow taking the win. Through two yellows he kept the top spot to place his Sky Rocket chassis in Victory Lane. He was chased most of the distance by Kevin Sather, who finished second and Austin Kaplan who took third. Rounding out the top five were Nate Chodur and Brett Moffit.
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