POIRIER WINS 2nd ANNUAL CANADIAN SPRINT CAR NATIONALS

Courtesy OHsweken Insider

From TJ Buffenbarger: OHSWEKEN, Ontario ­ (September 16th, 2006) ­ Steve Poirier scored the biggest feature victory of his short sprint car career Saturday night at the Ohsweken Speedway during the 2nd Annual Canadian Sprint Car Nationals presented by Arrow Express. Poirier inherited the lead when Justin Barger crashed while leading and held off a multitude of challengers including sprint car veteran Dale Blaney to claim the feature victory.

“The car was great, this is a really (big) win,” said Poirier in victory lane. “The crew did a great job giving me a good car.”

The 30 Lap feature event started with Alain Bergeron and Justin Barger on the front row. Bergeron, who had been dominant throughout the evening, took the lead at the start and opened up a sizeable advantage with Barger, Dussel, Poirier, and Jason Barney in tow.

Five laps into the event the first caution appeared for Ken Mackey and Fred Cade spinning in turns one and two. Both drivers restarted at the tail of the field.

During the restart Bergeron continued to lead until he slipped off the track in turns three and four and allowed Barger to take the lead. Blaney, who started ninth, methodically moved his way through the field and battled with Poirier and Bergeron for the second spot.

Disaster struck Barger on lap 13 when he tangled with the lap car of Rick Wilson and flipped hard going into turn three. Both drivers eventually emerged uninjured.

This allowed Poirier to inherit the lead with a lap car between himself and Blaney. Bergeron was the next to experience bad luck when his car that had been experiencing brake problems throughout the event flipped out of the race track in turns one and two. Bergeron, the Empire Super Sprints point leader, emerged uninjured.

For the restart Poirier had no lapped cars between himself and Blaney. Poirier was better again on the restart and pulled away from the rest of the field. Then while running second Blaney’s front wing was knocked askew and caused him to drop back. Jason Barney moved past Blaney for second and set sail after Poirier. After Barney moved past upstart ASCS Sprints on Dirt competitor Ryan Grubaugh made a daring outside pass to take away the third spot.

Blaney admitted after the race the cautions hurt his persuit of the leader.

“I really needed some longer green flag runs,” said Blaney after the event. “(Poirier’s) car took off much better on restart and without the longer green flag runs our car would not come in enough to catch him.”

Up front through it was all Poirier as he took the $6,000 first prize over Barney, Grubaugh, Don Adamczyk, and Blaney rounded out the top five.

The 2006 ASCS Sprints on Dirt driver Ken Mackey was the fastest qualifier with a lap of 13.717 seconds around the 3/8-mile oval. Ron Blair was the third of four drivers to flip out of the ball park when he tumbled during the second heat race. Nick Bashford flipped during the non-qualifiers event while Gary Troutman tipped over during the C-Main. All the drivers emerged uninjured.