Flying white styrofoam beads and two features won by drivers without a win this season had some fans singing Jingle Bells at Berlin Raceway’s Burnips Equipment 4-Cylinder night Saturday. End of the night school bus racing with plenty of skidding, sliding off the back stretch, and even a roll over caused the white stuff to float through the track lights, when a couple of busses knocked huge styrofoam blocks, used for soft wall, onto the track. More busses came along and dragged them around the track, grinding them to pieces. The wind from lap after lap kicked the clouds into the air where they floated into the night.
Division leader No.13 Dan Riemersma took his fast qualifier 4-Cylinder into the lead to stay, on lap seventeen of the thirty lap feature. The first and only caution, due to Don McNabb’s T-11 dying on the backstretch, set the stage for the only challenge for Riemersma who started eighteenth. From the outside lane he got the jump on the field and his main competition of the season, Ryan Hamm and Ben Kleis. Dan’s ride this season has been so dominant that Kleis is the only other driver to visit the winner’s circle. However, Hamm is still in the chase, in second place ahead of Ben. Officials questioned what Dan has under the hood, but he answered,” Just a standard Honda 2.2, one hundred fourty horse”. Later, thirty-five pounds of weight was added to the center of his car.
Kerkstra Services Pro Stock, and Engine Pro Super Stock divisions both ran double features on the night due to previous rain outs. The No. 51 of Weston Jewett found the winner’s circle for the first time ever in the first of the Pro Stock features, leading from start to finish. Dave Cutler, who started next to Jewett, tried his best but couldn’t hold off past feature winners, Ryan Gruppen and Justin Regnerus, taking fourth just ahead of Ken Smith Jr. and points leader Brian Tillema respectively.
Jewett came within one spot of pulling off double wins later, behind Smith who took home his fourth checkered of the season in the Jack Dejong Memorial. A sixth lap, turn two bump and slide by Kevin Degood and Regnerus collected Cutler and Gruppen causing a red flag cleanup. Smith’s car has been especially good during short features or runs and he needed all he had to hold off Weston, even holding it together after a small inside bump, while checking up in turn one of the last lap.
As with the Pro stocks it was Christmas for the winner of one Super Stock feature and another win on the season for winner of the other. Dave Lake’s No. 55 came away victorious in the early race after a couple of cautions due to slides and cars off the pace. Josh Slade’s No. 12 took the early lead but lost it on a restart to the No. 10 of Bob Spencer with Lake right behind. With two laps to go Spencer fell to the No. 55, who slipped away for the checkered.
Lake couldn’t duplicate the win in the second feature when, from third place, he raced Ray VanAllsburg a bit too hard and was sent to the rear by officials for spinning Ray’s No. 5. The resulting caution and restart gave No. 77 Dewey Nylaan the chance he needed to grab his third win on the season and move within thirty-eight points of the second place spot in the division.
A change in the Super Stock points lead resulted from No. 26 Chris Muyskens qualifying fastest, winning the fast car dash, and placing fifth and sixth in features. Meanwhile, the division leader and multiple champion Brian Wiersma’s No. 1 was unusually off pace all night due to mechanical issues, and dropped a spot. With Nylaan on his tale and Chris running so hot late in the season, the class championship race is coming right down to the wire.
All three classes have tight battles for leadership with less than fifty points separating the top spots, and only a handful of features upcoming. Riemersma faces tough competition and is being closely watched now in the 4-Cylinders. Brian Tillema got a bit of breathing room atop the Pro Stock board, by way of Justin Regnerus’ bad luck crash early on in the evening, which scratched him from an entire night of chances.
Of those classes only the Super Stocks race the following week, when ‘The Chet 100’ will allow the Coors Lite Late Models to make more drama. Eighty-eight points separate the top five of Terry VanHaitsma, Ross Meeuwsen, Tom Thomas, and Tim DeVos. VanHaitsma -2004 Sportsman Champ- seeks his first Late Model championship which won’t come easy with the three drivers on his tale each carrying multiple championships into the fight.
