[i (Bill W) July 27, 2009]
Rain washed half of Brandon Wimmer’s race weekend away, but he made the most of it with a strong second place run in weekly action at Attica (OH) Raceway Park on Friday night. This week, the All Star Circuit of Champions will hit the Midwest in the “Thunder through the Plains” in Missouri, Kansas and South Dakota.
Brandon drove Rick Ferkel’s #0 to a heat race win on Friday night at Attica. “We drew a good pill to start on the front of our heat race, and that was the key there,” he says of the heat win. “Obviously, I didn’t draw this weekend, because we drew a two for the feature too. Shorty drew on Friday and he did a good job.”
The Fairmount, Indiana driver lined up outside of row one for the 30-lap feature and trailed F.A.S.T. point leader, Craig Mintz, early on. Soon he had company in the battle for second. “(Sam) Hafertepe (Jr.) and I were running pretty hard for second,” says Brandon. “We accidentally got together with him there coming out of two. We were both lucky enough to keep going.”
As the laps wore on, the track started coming to Brandon as he reeled in the leader, using the low side of the racetrack. “We started up front there and we were going pretty good,” he says. “Before the caution with ten laps to go, we were really coming up on Craig Mintz. There were a couple of laps that I thought I would get underneath him.”
In the end, Brandon would settle for the runner-up spot. “After the caution, I was pretty much done,” he admits. “We weren’t as good as we had been. The cushion was a big one around the track…too big to run against. If your car would hit it, it would suck you in.”
Brandon and the rest of the Ferkel racing team have been gaining momentum as of late. “All in all, it was a good night,” says the driver. “The track was really good. There wasn’t a whole lot on the bottom. You had to carry momentum around the top. Second is not bad. We’d like to get that first win though. We keep knocking on the door. I think our chances are pretty good this week.”
The All Stars will hit US36 Raceway near Cameron, Missouri on Wednesday, the Belleville (KS) Highbanks on Thursday, Thunder Hill Raceway in Mayetta, Kansas on Friday, and end the weekend Saturday and Sunday at Huset’s Speedway in Brandon, South Dakota. The finale will pay $10,000 to the winner. “I’ve never been to Cameron, Belleville or Mayetta,” says Brandon. “I have been to Huset’s. Even though we haven’t been to some of these tracks, I feel like I have a little bit of an advantage from running with the World of Outlaws. We were used to showing up to places we had never been. In addition, Rick has been to places like this, and he’s a real asset. We’re really in tune with each other right now on setup.”
Brandon and Rick Ferkel would like to thank the following sponsors for all their help: Shorty’s Truck Repair, Smith’s Farm, Goodyear Tires, Griff’s Engines, Kear’s Speed Shop, Huggins Cams, BRODIX Heads, Barnes Oil Pumps, Prism Lubricants, Zeis Land Development, Butlerbuilt, Simpson, Winning With Wellness and WRT Web Designs.
- Bill Wright on Jul 27, 2009
- Article Date: 7/27/2009