{"id":18300,"date":"2015-03-24T09:13:15","date_gmt":"2015-03-24T13:13:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/?p=18300"},"modified":"2015-03-24T07:28:14","modified_gmt":"2015-03-24T11:28:14","slug":"gorham-inherits-sportsman-win-black-symons-skinner-get-victories-at-new-smyrna-speedway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/2015\/03\/gorham-inherits-sportsman-win-black-symons-skinner-get-victories-at-new-smyrna-speedway\/","title":{"rendered":"GORHAM INHERITS SPORTSMAN WIN – BLACK, SYMONS & SKINNER GET VICTORIES AT NEW SMYRNA SPEEDWAY"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"hjlkn\"<\/a>Week number two of the NASCAR Whelen All American Racing Series at New Smyrna
\nSpeedway produced some great racing with a nice crowd enjoying both the
\ntop-notch action and some fantastic weather to go along with it.
\nFor the second week in a row, 19 Sportsman cars signed in to do battle on the
\nhigh banks including most of the ones that had been damaged in last week’s big
\nwreck that claimed over half the field.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It looked like there might be a repeat of opening night though as the cars of
\nSandy Lee, Timmy Todd, Jr., Richard Fiore, Jr. and Justin Starr got tangled up
\nin turn two on the opening lap to negate the first start of the event. Only
\nTodd was able to continue as the second attempt at a start was much better
\nwith outside pole sitter Austin Howell grabbing the early advantage. George
\nGorham, Jr. moved by Garrett Hill for second on lap five as Hill’s mount began
\nto drop back, apparently down a cylinder.<\/p>\n

As the race continued under green, Gorham reeled in Howell and finally passed
\nhim for the top spot on lap 20 only to see the caution come out one lap later
\nas Richard Goodrich spun in turn two. Howell got the jump on the restart and
\nre-claimed the lead, then held off Gorham for the apparent victory. However,
\nHowell’s tires were found to be too soft in post-race tech and the win was
\nawarded to Gorham. The victory was a sweet one for the Lakeland driver after
\nhaving thrashed all week on his machine after it was badly damaged in the big
\nlap two wreck the week before.<\/p>\n

Daniel Conlin, Jr. made a late charge but had to settle for second in front of
\nPatrick Thomas, Junior Beckner and John Emerson. Rounding out the top ten
\nwere Todd, Ron Gustafson, Mike Pletka, Goodrich and Jon Compagnone who was
\ndriving the car that had won the previous week with Michael Seay behind the
\nwheel out of Sheppard Racing Enterprises in Deland. Completing the finishers
\nwere D. J. Farr, Donny Williams, Mike Dahm, Hill, R. J. Glaser, Fiore, Star
\nand Lee. Heat wins went to Gorham and Thomas.<\/p>\n

Ray Black, Jr. of Palm Coast put his Team Scuba Special out front on the
\nsecond lap and led the rest of the way to claim his first Pro Late Model win
\nhere. Black, who had the week off from the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series
\nwhere he drives for owner Bobby Dotter (and finished fifth in the
\nseason-opening race at Daytona), ran unchallenged as the entire 25-lap
\ndistance was run under green.<\/p>\n

Opening week winner Rich Clouser worked his way up from his scratch starting
\nspot to take second followed by Anthony Cataldi, Blake Cejner and Colby
\nClements. Rounding out the finishers were Zach Jarrell, Noah Cornman, Blaise
\nHetznecker and Bob Greene.<\/p>\n

The Modified 25-lapper saw some great action with young Matthew Green setting
\nthe pace before his teammate and mentor Alan Bruns (who had won the heat race
\nearlier) stormed by on lap four bringing Jerry Symons with him. As the field
\nexited turn two on the fifth lap, Symons just got into Bruns enough to send
\nhim spinning backwards into the back stretch pit entrance barrier. Bruns was
\nable to drive his car away and actually tried to continued despite some very
\nsevere damage but eventually had to drop from competition. Symons was sent to
\nthe rear of the restart line-up for his involvement but that only seemed to
\nmake “The Hammer” even more determined.<\/p>\n

Matt Wheeler inherited the lead at this point and did a fantastic job holding
\nthe field at bay for ten laps before Symons turned up the wick and went to the
\nfront on lap 16. From there it was “all she wrote” as Symons ran off and hid
\nin the America Auto, Tires & Service\/Kelly Roofing Special. Wheeler’s great
\nrun came to a halt on lap 18 as he and Ricky Moxley touched coming off turn
\nfour sending Wheeler spinning to bring out the second, and final, yellow
\nflag.<\/p>\n

Symons easily pulled away to take the victory over arch-rival Tank Tucker with
\nMoxley third over Green and Wheeler. Matt Jarrett took sixth followed by Jim
\nHigginbotham, Bruce Packer, Mike Dahm, Bruns and George Dahm.<\/p>\n

After winning the Bomber heat race, James Skinner of Melbourne sped past early
\nleader Shane Sutorus and went on to win his first career feature at New Smyrna
\nin his Chevy Monte Carlo sponsored by Clean Cut Tree Service. Charlie King
\nmade several runs at Skinner but his Chevy Cavalier just did not have enough
\n“oomph” and he settled for the runner-up spot while Sutorus held on for third
\nin his Lincoln over Megan Matheny and Aaron Overman.<\/p>\n

The evening of racing was dedicated to Darlene Corso-Patsos, wife of long-time
\nNew Smyrna Speedway sponsor Skip Patsos of Skips Boots & Western Wear who lost
\nher battle with cancer on Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Week number two of the NASCAR Whelen All American Racing Series at New Smyrna Speedway produced some great racing with a nice crowd enjoying both the top-notch action and some fantastic weather to go along with it. For the second week in a row, 19 Sportsman cars signed in to do battle on the high […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[45,112,15667],"tags":[6186],"class_list":["post-18300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nascar","category-new-hampshire","category-new-smryna","tag-new-smyrna-speedway"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18300"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18304,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18300\/revisions\/18304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}