It was two days shy of seven years since Damon Murty last visited victory lane at Independence Motor Speedway. Granted, you could count on one hand the number of times the IMCA Stock Car driver spent a Saturday night at the Buchanan County Fairgrounds in those seven years, but he made the rare trip to Independence pay off in a big way Saturday night. Murty collected the $1,200 winner's share for topping a field of 21 drivers in the 300th Stock Car feature in weekly racing history at the speedway.
Already advertised as $1,000-to-win for the milestone event, Doug Cue of Superior Cleaning Services added $200 to the pot for the winner of the 25-lap feature.
Murty, who won his heat, redrew the outside front row starting spot of the feature for the draw/redraw points special. He led the field through a trio of early cautions, then held off a hard-charging John Emerson to score the win. Emerson, who was caught up in a first lap caution, restarted from the tail after a quick pit stop. The track points leader made a terrific run through traffic to challenge Murty, only to come up short at the checkers.
It was the fifth win of Murty's career all-time in weekly racing at the speedway. He finished the night tied for 12th on that list with Curtis Roster, Darrin Treptow and Lon Gadow. Murty's span of 2,555 days between wins in Independence now stands as the longest in division history.
Rick Dralle earned his seventh career victory in the IMCA Late Model division. He, too, worked some magic with the calendar as his win Saturday night was one day shy of the six year anniversary of his first career Late Model win, which he also earned in Independence (7/7/2007).
Dralle made his way to the front on the first lap, pulled away from the field, then held off the late challenges of Darren Ackerman to score the victory, his second of the season. It is the second time in Dralle's career that he has won multiple times in a season in Independence. He also won twice in 2008. His seven career wins place Dralle in 25th on the division's all-time list at the speedway. Four of his wins have come during the month of July. There are still three Saturdays to go this month, Rick!
J.D. Auringer was the fifth and final leader in an IMCA Modified feature for the ages. Adam Johnson and Shawn Ryan split time at the front of that 20-lapper before Ronn Lauritzen took command. Lauritzen gave way to Vern Jackson midway through the event before a late caution bunched the field. Auringer took advantage of the restart to drive to his third win of the season.
Auringer has earned nine career IMCA Modified victories in weekly racing history in Independence. That mark ties him for 11th with Timm Jensen on the all-time list. We might as well keep the July trend going... Auringer's win Saturday night was just 13 days ahead of the anniversary of his first Modified win at the speedway, which came on July 19, 2003. Ten years? Really, J.D.? Have you really been in a Modified that long?
The wins keep coming for IMCA Hobby Stock driver Chris Luloff. Luloff took command on the fifth of 15 laps to earn his fourth victory in the last five weeks and his fifth win of the season. The all-time Hobby Stock wins leader won five features in the same season one other time in his career - 2004, the year of his first feature win. Would you believe, the only feature Luloff didn't win in the last five weeks was the date closest to the anniversary of HIS first win in Independence? He won features on June 8, June 15, June 29 and July 6, but was a DNF on June 22. His first career win was June 19, 2004. I guess the anniversary trends are over for this go-'round.
With back-to-back feature wins on two separate occasions this season, Luloff now has six separate streaks of multiple wins in his career. He has 27 trips to the winner's circle all-time in Independence in the Hobby Stock division. Along with his three SportMod wins in 2009, Luloff now has 30 trips to victory lane in Independence, putting him a single win behind Troy Cordes for 11th on the track's all-time list.
Now, here's where the anniversary trend REALLY goes out the window... Kevin Hurst earned the first IMCA Northern SportMod win of his career Saturday night. Hurst took the lead early, then survived four cautions and a hard-charging Austin Kaplan to become the fourth different first-time SportMod winner this season. He became the 21st different SportMod winner all-time at the speedway. Hurst also became the seventh different SportMod winner in nine nights of weekly points racing. That mark is one shy of a record eight different SportMod winners, which was set last season.
Adam Gates set the track record by earning his seventh straight win in the IMCA Sport Compact division. Gates took the lead from Travis Ross midway through that event to drive to his eighth win overall in Independence through nine weeks.
Special thanks to Bucky Doren for joining us tonight in Independence. Now that his son's baseball season is over, Coach Doren will hopefully have more time to spend at area race tracks. It was a pleasure to have you in attendance, Bucky! He will be back behind the microphone Sunday night at Benton County Speedway.
I'll also make the trip across town to BCS Sunday night for the last race before the July 14 Hogan Memorial. As I mentioned earlier this weekend, details for that event are located in the flyer at the top of this page. Don't wait for next weekend to spend a Sunday night in Vinton! I hope to see all of you there later tonight!
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