National Championship Racing Association

Chadd Breezes to NCRA Sprint Victory at 81

By David Smith, Jr.

 
PARK CITY, Kan. (June 7, 2008) - Former series champion Mike Chadd of Lincoln, Nebraska started on the pole and never looked back to claim the 25 lap O'Reilly/NCRA sprint car presented by ICM/Ethanol feature event Saturday night at 81 Speedway in Park City, Kansas.
 
A.J. Selenke started on the outside front row but it was Chadd who quickly took the lead as the field exited turns one and two. J.D Johnson ran third while Marc Robe and Mike Peters were the top five after the first lap was complete. By the second lap, Chadd had quickly built a half-stretch lead while behind him, Robe passed Johnson for the third position, only to slip off turn four and fading back to sixth position.
 
As the leader began approaching lapped traffic for the first time on lap seven, the caution quickly waved when Robe again spun, this time to a stop, in turn four. As the field was being realigned for the restart, Oklahoma City driver Andy Shouse, who was running sixth after starting tenth, exited to the pits with a blown motor.
 
On the restart it was Chadd, followed by Selenke, Peters, Johnson and current series points leader C.J. Johnson as the 1993 series champion once again jumped out to a comfortable advantage. Heading down the backstretch, Peters got sideways and executed a 360 spin in front of the field but gathered it back up but had dropped back to ninth. This would move C.J. Johnson into the third position as he began pressuring Selenke for the runner up spot.
 
Just passed the halfway point, the final caution flag of the evening appeared when Don Droud, Jr. came to a stop with a broke front end entering turn three, ending his evening.
 
On the final restart, Chadd and his Eckley powered Maxim chassis again jumped out to a comfortable lead while behind him, the battle for second was heating up between Selenke, C.J. Johnson and J.D. Johnson. Selenke and his strong run would fade on lap fifteen when he slid off the wind-swept turns three and four moving C.J. into the second position. He would close the distance to six car lengths behind the leader by lap twenty while behind him, ninth starting Derek Drown moved the Danny King owned #85E ICM/Ethanol sponsored sprinter into the fourth position and set sail on the top three.
 
But Chadd would again start to pull away from the rest of the field and went unchallenged the rest of the way to pick up his seventh career series victory. C.J. Johnson would hold off several challenges from J.D. Johnson to finish second while Drown settled for a strong fourth. Gavin Punch, the first "B" feature winner, started eleventh and rounded out the top five.
 
Koby Barksdale had the best finish amongst the series rookies as he started twelfth and finished seventh.
 
The ten lap heat races for the twenty-nine car field were won by Chadd, Selenke and Peters while Punch and Barksdale won the two "B" features.


O'Reilly Finish Line

HEAT 1 - 1, Mike Chadd. 2, Derek Drown. 3, Don Droud, Jr.. 4, Andy Shouse. 5, Kerry McAlister. 6, Steve Richardson. 7, Chris Morgan. 8, Dwight Schroeder. 9, Jon  Freeman. 10, Luke Cranston.

HEAT 2 - 1, A.J. Selenke. 2, C.J. Johnson. 3, Larry Neighbors. 4, Koby Barksdale. 5, Jason Schroeder. 6, Jeff Stasa. 7, Roger Sundquist. 8, Scott Lehman. 9, Corey Moore. 10, Allan Unruh.

HEAT 3 - 1, Mike Peters. 2, Marc Robe. 3, J.D. Johnson. 4, Gavin Punch. 5, David Wheeler. 6, Cody Forshee. 7, John Thomas. 8, Dusty Murray. 9, Ryan Kitchen.

B Feature 1 - 1, Gavin Punch. 2, Jason Schroeder. 3, David Wheeler. 4, Jon Freeman. 5, Scott Lehman. 6, Ryan Kitchen. 7, Jeff Stasa. 8, Allan Unruh.

B Feature 2 - Koby Barksdale. 2, Kerry McAlister. 3, Dwight Schroeder. 4, Luke Cranston. 5, Cody Forshee. 6, Roger Sundquist. 7, John Thomas. 8, Dusty Murrary. 9, Steven Richardson. 10, Corey Moore. 11, Chris Morgan.

A Feature - 1, Mike Chadd. 2, C.J. Johnson. 3, J.D. Johnson. 4, Derek Drown. 5, Gavin Punch. 6, Mike Peters. 7, Koby Barksdale. 8, Larry Neighbors. 9, A.J. Selenke. 10, Luke Cranston. 11, Kerry McAlister. 12, Scott Lehman. 13, Dwight Schroeder. 14, David Wheeler. 15, Jon Freeman. 16, Cody Forshee. 17, Jason Schroeder. 18, Don Droud, Jr.. 19, Marc Robe. 20, Andy Shouse.