*Alex Bruce Photo Attachment // Thorold, ONT – September 12, 2009 – By Dave Roberts, DIRTcar Racing Northeast Series Correspondent
BJ Willard of St. Catharines, Ontario comes from a historic racing family in the Southern Ontario region. They have been around short track auto racing since the time when Merrittville Speedway opened it doors in 1952. His dad Bill Jr was a top winner as well as his aunt Tammy, the only female driver to ever win a Merrittville Speedway Modified feature. His grandfather Alan was a top flight racer himself in the early days of the track.
BJ made the family proud Saturday night (September 12th) when he captured his first-ever Mr. DIRTcar Sportsman Championship Series race at the energetic one-third mile.
Willard took the lead on lap four and survived through several caution periods to win by a wide margin in the 50-lap feature. He was especially strong a few laps after a restart. He knew that he was going to be at the top of his game.
"We haven't won here since 2007," said Willard, as he waited through the post technical process. "We timed well and we won our heat race. I knew that we were going to be strong when the feature started.”
Willard started third and took the lead for good on lap four. In plain simple terminology, no one else had anything for the third-generation driver.
"This is a real confidence builder. When it comes to running the (Mr. DIRTcar) tour, it's been very tough. We haven't been able to time well and we just couldn't seem to finish well. Tonight, we were fast and I knew that it was going to be tough to beat us.”
Front row starters Jim Johnstone and Cody McPherson ran side by side for the first three laps. The first of six caution flags flew on lap three. When the restart occured, Willard took very little time in grabbing the lead. After that, it seemed all academic.
Early top-five challengers were Ryan Susice and Greg Panunte, who later fell back to seventh and eighth, respectively. Chad Chevalier ran second for much of the race and battled both Susice and Chris Raabe of Napanee, Ontario. On lap 34, Raabe, the defending Mr. DIRTcar Sportsman Champion, started his effort to get by Chevalier but wasn't able to succeed as it became the best battle on the racing surface.
On lap 47, Raabe finally got by Chevalier for second but didn't have anything for Willard, settling for runner-up position at the end.
"I'll take it," smiled Raabe afterwards. "I usually struggle at this place so finishing second at Merrittville is almost like winning.”
The 2009 Can-Am and Thunder Alley Speedway champion was 63 points behind Greg Panunte coming into Merrittville Speedway but isn't looking at points right now.
"You don't really know what's going on with points right now because you're going to be able to drop two races. It's tough to figure that stuff out right now."
Brad Rouse of St. Catharines, Ontario was third followed by Chevalier in fourth and Tyler McPherson, also of St. Catharines, in fifth. Sixth was Brandon Easey of St. Catharines followed by Panunte and Susice, of Ransomville, N.Y. Rounding out the top-10 were Rob Knapp and Dan Wiesner of Geneva, N.Y.
Heat race winners were Willard, Susice and Easey.
Mr. DIRTcar Sportsman Series action closes out its Niagara Frontier portion of the 2009 schedule as teams travel to Humberstone Speedway on Sunday, Sept. 13 with the 50-lap feature winner collecting $1,000.
MERRITTVILLE NOTES: The 28 cars that signed in to race at Merrittville Speedway was the lowest number of the 2009 season for the Mr DIRTcar Sportsman Championship Series...The series continues the following night at Humberstone (ONT) Speedway then moves east with double features scheduled this Friday, Sept. 18, at Canandaigua (NY) Speedway and then on to Genesee Speedway in Batavia, NY on Saturday...Greg Panunte came into the night as the series points leader holding a five-point edge over Jipp Ortiz. He leaves Merrittville in the same position. Two drivers put on quite a show of their own. Merrittville Speedway regular Brad Rouse was the fastest driver on the track by the end of the 50-lap feature, taking a third from his 21st starting position. Rob Knapp, also a Merrittville regular, finished ninth after starting 25th.
