Jason Kolbe, a 20-year-old Oak Lawn native, pulled probably the bonehead move of his short career when he plowed into and spun out leader Stacy Kelley in Turn 3 on the final lap of the feature.
One lap earlier, Kelley had bumped Kolbe out of the groove between Turns 3 and 4, but she also hesitated long enough before driving on through to allow him to straighten himself and drop in right behind her coming out of Turn 4.
There was no such opportunity moments later for Kelley, who was driving certainly her best race of the season and one of the best in her career. She went around in her No. 30, Kolbe stopped, two or three cars piled up behind them and the race was stopped.
Minutes later, it was declared official without anyone crossing the finish line. The win was given to third-running Chad Proctor.
Incredibly, the one person would be the most angry, Kelley, was probably the most cool, calm and collected.
“In my mind I won the race,” she said, managing a smile. “I should have, but there’s not much you can do when you get hit from behind. Other than that, we had a good, clean race and ran good. That’s all you can ask for, really.
Kolbe could have chosen the latter excuse, although I would have begged to differ. Instead, he accepted full responsibility for the whole mess, including the earlier bump when she got him out of shape on lap 29.
“It probably looked so deliberate but it wasn’t,” Kolbe said, looking as contrite as one possibly could. “I did not want that to happen. I feel bad for them, and I feel bad for all the guys up the corner who were destroyed.”
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