Dale Blaney snatched a win away from front row starter Brandon Martin on lap 14 of the 40 lap A-main event. Blaney’s experience outweighed Martin’s desire to win as Blaney would get out front and never look back. The Fowler, Ohio driver grabbed the lead on a lap 15 restart and went on to claim his second win of the University of Northwest Ohio Sprint Speedweek presented by RacingJunk.com at Fremont Speedway in front of a packed house on Budweiser Night.
Mike Linder and Byron Reed made a late race charge to the front as they diced through traffic and ran side by side for several laps making the battle for the runner up spot the most exciting racing of the night. Martin would eventually settle for fourth with Phil Gressman rounding out the Top 5.
The win kept Blaney in contention for the $50,000 speedweek bonus, but he would have to win Friday at Limaland Motorsports Park and Saturday at Eldora Speedway. It marked Blaney’s 57th career victory with the O’Reilly All Star Circuit of Champions. It was also Blaney’s third win of the year at “The Track That Action Built. ” “Brandon (Martin) was good early. I knew it was 40 laps and I just had to be patient and not press too hard and let the race come to me. We’ve won three of the four times we’ve been to Fremont this year. This track just suits my driving style, ” said Blaney in the Engine Pro Victory Lane beside his Berlin Natural Bakery/George Fisher Racing #2.
The 40-lap feature saw Martin jump into the early lead with Brian Paulus, Blaney, and Brian Ellenberger in tow. Martin built a pretty good lead as he lapped traffic on by the 9th circuit, which saw Blaney move into second. The first of seven yellows would fly on lap 14. On the restart, Blaney would make his winning move exiting turn 4. After a rash of yellows, Blaney would set sail.
The real battle was heating up for second through sixth involving Martin, Paulus, Mike Linder, Byron Reed and 14th starting Phil Gressman. At the halfway mark, Blaney led over Martin, Paulus, Reed, Linder and Gressman.
That remained the running order until four laps from the end when Martin, Reed and Linder would race each other hard. Reed and Linder would split Martin in turn 3 to grab the runner-up and third positions respectively. Then Reed and Linder had a spirited battle for the runner-up spot as Blaney cruised ahead.
“We’ve had a pretty decent car all week… the results just don’t show it, ” said Reed beside his Reebar Diecasting machine.
“That was some hard racing. We were pretty good on the restarts… after that we were just another car, ” said Linder of his Burns Iron & Metal backed sprinter.
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