BLOOMQUIST CLAIMS SIXTH DIRT LATE
MODEL DREAM CHAMPIONSHIP WITH
VINTAGE RUN
June 9, 2013 by
ROSSBURG (June 8) — As the race
leaders pulled away in the Dirt Late Model Dream XIX presented by Ferris
Commercial Mowers, veteran Scott Bloomquist bided his time.
Scott Bloomquist captured his sixth $100,000 payday at Eldora on Saturday.
It was vintage Bloomquist at Eldora
Speedway on Saturday night as the Mooresburg, Tenn., driver, known for
his classic late lap charges through the field, replicated that effort
to pocket another $100,000-to-win, 100-lap victory at the historic
.500-mile clay oval. It was Bloomquist’s sixth Dream victory and first
since 2008.
“That about as sweet of a handling car, I
could do anything with it. I could run middle, bottom, high,” said
Bloomquist, who started sixth in the field. “Overall, I was in such
control I felt real comfortable the whole race no matter how close we
ran to the wall. They key was to be able to pull off the wall. I can’t
say enough. The car was awesome.”
The field had no answers for Bloomquist,
even with a tension-filled restart with two laps left. Bloomquist
rocketed from the pack on that green-white-checkered restart and put the
wild racing for second place and beyond in his dust. Bloomquist crossed
the finish line 1.527 seconds ahead of Dennis Erb Jr. (Carpentersville,
Ill.) and Josh Richards (Shinnston, W.Va.). Those two had waged an
impressive duel as the closing laps ticked off.
“We just used everything we had to get up to the front. We had a good run,” said Erb, who started 17th and
claimed the $20,000 reward for his runner-up spot. “It’s pretty tough
when it’s a long race out there. No matter where you start it takes a
lot out of you.”
As Bloomquist was rolling onto the victory lane stage, Richards — who charged from his last-place starting spot of 28th —
came up 32 pounds light at the scales. He was disqualified after
failing to meet the 2,300-pound minimum. That moved Brian Birkhofer
(Muscatine, Iowa) up to third. Dale McDowell (Chickamauga, Ga.) and
Jimmy Owens (Newport, Tenn.) rounded out the top five.
“They key was having a good enough car
to take off on the restart,” Bloomquist said. “I was confident enough I
could restart and control the race again. Confidence was high.”
Fireworks light up the night sky as drivers salute the fans prior to the Dirt Late Model Dream
Tyler Reddick, a 17-year old from
Corning, Calif., bolted to the lead from the pole. He led the first 21
laps by forcing the tempo. He caught the back of field in just six laps,
but appeared to push it a little too hard when he tagged the wall in
turn four on a slide job and damaging his spoiler. He retained the lead
until lap 21 when the field reeled him in.
“I got a little too aggressive and I hit
the wall. It was driving different but it was still pretty good,” said
Reddick, who finished 24th.
Jimmy Mars (Menomonie, Wis.) inherited
the lead on lap 22 when Reddick fell off pace rolling out of turns 3-4.
Mars paced the field with Tim Fuller, Duane Chamberlain, Bloomquist and
Birkhofer giving chase. Mars clicked off the lead laps but Bloomquist
was quietly making his traditional charge through the field. He moved
into third with 47 laps complete and second with 54 down.
“The race track right now is a good as
it’s ever been. I just did not want to spend the tires so I let them
go,” Bloomquist said. “I knew I was running a fast enough pace not to
get (lapped). That’s definitely what made it feel like the old days. We
used to wait for the last 30 laps and everybody had already burned their
stuff up.”
Class Photo: the Dirt Late Model Dream starting field
Bloomquist peeked under Mars on lap 59
and several times after. He finally built enough momentum to get past
Mars to lead lap 65. His lead escalated to seven seconds with 20 laps to
go. It remained comfortable until nine laps remained with a caution.
Bloomquist, choosing to go high on the double-file restarts, ran away
and hid from the field until that final restart.
“You hate to see those cautions at the
end like that. But the car felt so good. The car just took off,”
Bloomquist said. “I could run any line around this race track. We stayed
up high and tried to keep the heat out of the tires and not burn them
up too early … then make a charge at the end.”
The victory at Eldora was Bloomquist’s first since 2008. It was also his 11th top-five finish in the Dream in a record 17 starts.
“It’s a lot tougher than people think,”
Bloomquist said of what had been a difficult season for him until
Saturday night. “We’ve had a lot of bad luck on a lot of rough race
tracks. I told everybody all this bad luck means we’re just going to
come into the Dream and win it. It’s time to turn this thing around and
that’s what we did. It’s tough being an owner and driver combination.
There’s not too many of us left. It’s expensive to go up and down the
road.”
Matt Miller (Whitehouse, Ohio) entered
the Dream feature winning two of the three preliminary features in the
new format that included Twin 25 features on both Thursday and Friday.
He gave chase early and worked his way up to second on lap 87 but pulled
off just four laps later with mechanical trouble.
Eldora Speedway returns to action on
June 22 with Ohio Sprint Speedweek, a three-division show featuring the
All Star Circuit of Champions sprint cars, UMP DIRTcar modifieds and
Eldora stock cars.
Tickets and campsites for that event, and others on the busy Eldora slate, may be purchased online at www.EldoraSpeedway.com at any time of the day or night; or by calling the speedway office (937) 338-3815 during normal business hours.
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