Zomer Zooms; Agan wins first at Knoxville
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
By Bob Wilson
KNOXVILLE, Iowa (July 25) Last week Dusty Zomer lost a brake caliper and lost the lead with two laps to go. This week he won going away at Knoxville Raceway Saturday night. Jon Agan finally notched his name into the win column after coming close on numerous occasions during his career in the 360 division.
In a 20-lap feature event that saw a 12-car invert, Zomer ran fifth until a yellow came out on the eighth lap. Prior to that, Ricky Logan had dominated the race and was pulling away from the field. The yellow for a minor 2-car incident, sent both of those cars to the pits and negated Logan’s great lead and bunched the field into single file order.
On the restart, Zomer soon caught and passed third running Brian Brown. On the next lap, Zomer did the same to second running Skip Jackson. He was closing on Logan when the caution came out on the thirteenth go around for a spun car.
When the race was restarted, Logan chose the bottom of the big half-mile oval and Zomer took to the top (a 5/8th-mile distance). Coming out of turn four, Zomer had the momentum and the lead for that lap. Logan stayed on the bottom in an attempt to recapture the lead but was not successful. By lap 16 the young Sioux Falls driver was checking out on the field.
Yet one more yellow awaited the leader on the 18th lap. When the race resumed, no one could challenge Zomer’s Gifford J & J and he came across the stripe for his third career win here. All the action was behind him as Kerry Madsen had driven from 12th to make a final lap pass of Jackson to take second and 21st starter Terry McCarl managed a final turn pass of Brown to gain fourth. Following Brown were Bronson Maeschen, Johnny Herrera, Josh Higday, Jesse Giannetto and Josh Schneiderman.
Agan’s win in the Burnham Maxim was hard fought as he led the distance after lap two while starting sixth. In fact, he had just gained the top spot when the red flag was thrown for a hard, 2-car crash in turn four. Mike Houseman Jr. was taken out when Dennis Moore Jr. jumped the cushion and collided with him as the two shot into turn four. Both cars went through a series of wild flips before coming to a halt. Houseman’s car almost immediately burst into flames. Fire crewmen were quickly on the spot and dowsed the fire, but Houseman did go to the Knoxville Area Community Hospital for attention to some minor burns.
The restart saw Clint Garner, who started beside Agan in the third row, take second place and pick up a great pace in an attempt to pass the Agan machine. Agan, who had found success in this race on the bottom, kept his line while Garner took his momentum to the top. Lap after lap Garner chased in that manner, some laps right on Agan’s tail while others found him slightly off the pace.
In the end, in lap traffic, Agan edged Garner by the distance of half the length of his sprint car in a nail biter. Third went to Jonathan Cornell and fourth went to Hard Charger Dustin Selvage who had started 17th. Quick timer Ryan Roberts finished fifth. Completing the top ten were Nate Mosher, Johnny Anderson, Chad Meyer, Dave Hall and Gregg Bakker.
The 305 sprints completed their series of appearances at the Knoxville oval with Marty Stephenson taking the win, his first at this track. He took the lead at the outset, relinquished it to Bob Lamb for five laps and then kept to his game plan on the cushion to take the final two laps and the win. 16-year-old Tasker Phillips finished second, Lamb was third and brother Matt Stephenson was fourth. Mark Widmar completed the top five.
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