WEST HAVEN, Vt. – Elmo Reckner won big on an exciting night of dirt track racing at Devil’s Bowl Speedway on Saturday, winning the Rutland Regional Medical Center Healthcare Heroes Night feature for the headline Sportsman Modified division.
Other winners on the night included John Gosselin, Chris Murray, rookie Daryl Gebo and Kamden Duffy. The Saturday night event set the stage for Sunday’s third annual Battle at the Bowl event for Big Block and Small Block Modifieds.
Sixty-year-old Reckner, who hails from Ballston Lake, N.Y., led the charge for a quintet of underdog dirt track racers who swept the top five places. Reckner started on the pole of the 30-lap feature and outlasted the field – Jason Bruno in particular – over three restarts to lead every lap and score his second victory of the season. Bruno ran the race of his life, rising and falling in a race-long fight inside the top five, before putting up a strong challenge to Reckner in the final laps.
Bruno’s runner-up showing was the best of his career, and Mike Fisher’s third-place result equaled his best effort. Billy Lussier earned his first top-five finish of the season in fourth place and hard-luck sophomore Josh Masterson ended a tough streak in fifth. Of the five, Reckner entered the event highest in the championship standings in 11th place; runner-up Bruno ranked 25th.
Justin Comes finished sixth to unofficially tighten the championship margin to 24 points behind leader Demetrios Drellos (618-594), who sat out the night with a one-race suspension. Tim LaDuc, Marty Kelly III, Justin Stone, and Tanner Siemons completed the top 10 finishers in order. Masterson, Fisher, and Adam Piper won the qualifying heats.
John Gosselin took a hard-fought first-ever win in the 25-lap feature for the O’Reilly Auto Parts Limited Sportsman division, grabbing a special $500 winner’s purse in the process. Gosselin took the lead from Matt Jordan with a nifty pass on lap 5 and then built a big lead before seeing his advantage wiped away by a caution flag with just three laps left.
At the restart, Gary English was up to the task and hung tight to Gosselin. English nosed ahead on the inside lane to lead the white flag lap, but Gosselin buried his foot in the throttle coming off the final corner for a winning margin of just 0.176-seconds – about six feet – at the finish line. The runner-up result was a career-best for English.
Troy Audet had an impressive recovery after crashing in his qualifying heat to finish third, followed by Bill Duprey and Randy Ryan. Bryon Linendoll was a career-best sixth ahead of Bob Kilburn, Melvin Pierson, Dylan Madsen, and point leader Austin Comes. Forty cars were on hand to qualify for 24 starting positions; heats were won by Cody O’Brien, Kilburn, and Ryan, with Audet and Craig Wholey splitting the consolation races and Josh LeClaire taking the last-chance B-Main. Comes has an unofficial lead of 14 points over Audet (603-589).
Chris Murray did it again in the Super Stock division, taking his eighth win of the year. This one did not come easy, though, as Murray was part of a big accident on the opening lap and went sailing off the backstretch. He recovered nicely to pass Andrew FitzGerald on the outside with eight laps left, and he cruised to the win from there.
FitzGerald was second ahead of Paul Braymer, rookie Chuck Bradford, and Josh Bussino. Wayne Gaige finished sixth, with Michael Clark Jr., Tony Salerno, Tim Simonds, and Don Williams rounding out the top 10.
The chaotic Summit Up Construction Mini Stock was up to its amusing old tricks, and rookie Daryl Gebo outlasted a field of 32 cars over a wild 20 laps for his third victory. Rookie Chase Allen had an impressive stint up front, leading 10 laps before Chris Sumner took over. Sumner and Gebo raced each other hard but clean in a lead-swapping fight to the end, and Gebo led only the last 100 feet of the race.
Sumner was the runner-up with Allen a career-best third. Craig Kirby debuted a new car for fourth place, with Derrick Counter fifth. The balance of the top 10 was completed in order by Clemmy Bell, Griff Mahoney, Brian Blake, and rookies Adam Mahoney and Scott Chandler.
Thirteen-year-old Kamden Duffy won the typically wild scramble to the front, finding the lead on the first lap after starting in fifth. Ray Hanson maintained a comfortable edge in the championship standings with a runner-up finish over John Smith, Kaidin White, and Kevin Smith. Duffy and John Smith won the heats.