Mother Nature was upon us this Victoria Day long weekend. With lots of rain in the forecast for the original date of Saturday, May 20th, both Sunset Speedway and APC United Late Model Series made the decision to move the event to Sunday. This gave our teams one extra day to prepare from issues occurred at Flamboro just a week ago.
11 Qwick Wick Can-Am Midget race teams presented by Miller Office Trailers pulled into Sunset Speedway in Innisfil, Ontario as part of day 1 of Sunset’s Spring Velocity event, and as part of Beattie’s Distillers night for the TQ Midgets. It was the #7 car of Jeff Blackburn there to defend his victory from week 1. Teams had 2 practice sessions to dial their cars in before heat races would occur. Paul Jorgensen (68) and Andrew Whelan (5) after his flip last weekend, starting on the front row of HMCW Chassis heat #1. Whelan stayed at bay in second place, but it would be Blackburn powering through the field from the back to take the checkered flag. Defending champion, Cory Whittam (55) and Mike Westwood (91) would lead the field to green in heat #2. Whittam powered to the front and never looked back visiting HMCW Chassis victory lane.
With a very small amount of different series part of this event, there was little time for drivers to make adjustments to their cars before having to do battle in the 25-lap feature event. Jorgensen and Whittam would lead the full field to the green flag. Whittam, who loves the outside line at any track he goes to, blasted to the lead out of turn 2. The field saw some three wide and almost 4 wide racing on lap 2 before caution would fly for the #15 car of Bob Bailey and David Miller (11) spinning in turn 3-4. Restart had Whittam back out into the lead. Cars got single file before the caution flew again for Bailey stopped just shy of the pit road turn off for a broken driveshaft. Miller was stopped just behind Bailey as well, and was pushed off. The cause is unknown at this time. The restart got some amazing wheel-to-wheel racing going with Whittam back out in the lead, but with James Stanley (57) on the outside of the #55 car going for the lead. Stanley would prevail out to the lead with Whittam right on his tail tank to claim the lead back at his first possible chance. Caution put a stop to this battle with Jorgensen getting loose off turn 4 and spinning, just missing the inside wall. The battle between Stanley and Whittam continued on the restart with the double duty driver of Jr Farrelly (72) catching the top two cars. Caution would fly with 10 to go for a spin by newcomer, Sherry Hogan (74x). The final restart of the race would take place with Whittam taking the lead and taking the checkered flag as Blackburn spun after checking up battling for the podium finish.
Stanley and Farrelly were your top 3 podium finishers. Daniel Hawn (42), Whelan, Jorgensen, Hogan, Blackburn, Westwood, Miller, and Bailey rounding out the finishing order.
We would like to take the time to thank Sunset Speedway and APC for getting the event in. Thank you to GForceTV for their great coverage live of our race and to Beattie’s Distillers for their generous sponsorship for our raceday. The Can-Am Midgets are off until June 3rd where we visit Flamboro Speedway for the second time this season.