Boom Briggs Captures MCR Priority Care RaceFAN 50!!!
(E. Smethport, PA) The 2008 season came to an end Saturday night at McKean County Raceway as Boom Briggs of Bear Lake, Pennsylvania swept the entire three day event and pocketed over $15,500 in prize money driving his Meridan Hardwoods, Custom Racing Engines, Genesis Shocks Rocket Chassis. The Bear Lake Banzai won Thursday night’s Dave Lundgren Memorial King of the Hill and Friday nights, Don Hardy Memorial and capped the weekend off with his biggest career win, the Priority Care RaceFAN 50!
Boom started on the pole for the $12,000 Priority Care RaceFAN 50 due to his Andrews Auto Salvage Dash win. Starting next to him was his teacher, Chub Frank, the inaugural winner of Priority Care RaceFAN 50 in 2006. The pair of Rockets shot down the front stretch at the initial green with Chubzilla using the cushion to stay even with Boom. As the pair completed lap one, it was Frank by a half of a car length. The two stayed even till Briggs would lead his first lap on lap four. Chub would come back and nip Briggs at the line on lap five as Rich Gardner, Jeff Hoffman and Chad Valone rounded out the top five. Briggs would come back on lap seven to grab the lead back from Chub. The white #99B of Briggs hugged the inside berm as he started to pull a few car lengths on Frank. As lap ten clicked off the board Boom still had a three car length lead over Frank, with Gardner, Hoffman and Valone still your remaining top five cars. Hoffman slipped in turn two on the next lap to allow Valone and twelfth place starter and defending race winner Rob Blair to claim the fifth position. Valone moved into third on lap thirteen, as Gardner and Blair were still fourth and fifth. Blair would dispose of Gardner the next lap and sixteenth starting Mike Blose would claim fifth on lap fifteen. Briggs meanwhile still had a comfortable lead over Chub. On lap 20 the first yellow of the event came out as a steady rain was falling and ULMS and MCR officials waited till the precipitation let up and the track was race able again. On the restart, Brigg chose the inside lane and Chub tried to use the cushion again to race with the Bear Lake Banzai. Boom again started to distance himself over Chub as Valone, Blair and Blose were locked into a battle for third. At the halfway point the top five were still the same with Hoffman, eighteenth starting Todd Andrews now in seventh, Gardner, Bob Close and Doug Eck rounding out the top ten.
Close driving a backup Chub Frank machine moved into eighth on the next lap. Eck would put Gardner back to tenth on lap twenty eight as Briggs had lap traffic coming into play allowing Chub to close in again. On lap thirty-four, near disaster happened for Briggs as the lap car of Scott Lebarron spun in middle of turn 3 and 4 and Briggs had to take evasive action to miss the spun #8L machine. On the restart Boom lead Chub into turn one, while fifth place running and 2008 Northern Tier Inc. ULMS Late Model Champion, Todd Andrews made his outside move to get around Mike Blose for fifth and hounded Blair for fourth. Andrews did a slide job out of turn 2 which resulted in contact between him and Blair allowing Blose to regain fifth. Blair would come right back pass Blose for fifth as he was glued to Andrews black #42 machine. Valone would slip above the cushion on lap 40 to allow Andrews and Blair to move past and now be in third and fourth. The yellow would come out again on lap 43 for the slow machine of Jared Miley. Briggs again pace the field and shot ahead of Chub on the restart as Andrews went to the top groove in turns one and two in his attempt to move around Chubzilla. This allowed Blair to slide underneath Andrews and regrab third. Boom kept a slight comfortable lead over Chub as Blair, Andrews and Valone were all hounding each other for those four positions. But nobody had enough for Boom Briggs as he came across the stripe for his biggest career win. The past two Priority Care RaceFAN 50 winners, Chub Frank and Rob Blair were second and third. Andrews claimed fourth from his eighteenth starting spot and we crowned the 2008 Northern Tier Inc. ULMS Late Model Champion. Chad Valone had an impressive fifth; Doug Eck came home sixth from his seventeenth starting spot. Blose came home seventh from sixteenth, Hoffman was eight, Bob Close came home ninth in one of Chub Frank’s backup cars, with Rich Gardner claiming tenth.
Rob Blair set fast time with a new track record of 14.66 seconds in Friday’s Weber Hydraulics Keeping the Pressure On Time Trials. Heat winners were: Jeff Hoffman, Chad Valone, Chub Frank, Rich Gardner and Mike Knight. Mike Blose and Doug Eck won the consolation events while Briggs and Frank won the Andrews Auto Salvage Dashes.
RESULTS:
Northern Tier Inc. ULMS Late Models PRIORITY CARE RACE FAN 50:
BOOM BRIGGS, Chub Frank, Rob Blair, Todd Andrews, Chad Valone, Doug Eck, Mike Blose, Jeff Hoffman, Bob Close, Rich Gardner, Mike Knight, Sam Stile, Dutch Davies, Gregg Satterlee, David Scott, Doug Ricotta, Greg Oakes, Alan Sagi, Jason Dupont, Jared Miley, Scott Lebarron, Dave Hess, Brent Rhebergan, Dick Barton
DNQ: Chris Hackett, John Lobb, Dan Stone, Luke Hoffner, Dennis Lunger, Kirk Bradley, Doyle Benton, Darrell Bossard, Shawn McGarvey, George Lebarbara, Andy Kania, Bump Hedman, Bernie Whiteford, Al Brewer