Stock Car Racing: Kohl earns 3rd win on the season

BARROWS — Nathan Kohl made it three feature wins in three feature races, and Jake Hagemann, Tommy Bawden, Brandon Bombardo and Aaron Johnson each notched their second win on a chilly night of racing at North Central Speedway Saturday, May 21.

It was the 2nd annual Ron Johnson Johnson Memorial race, in honor of the father of current Super Stock driver Tim Johnson, brother of Hobby Stock driver Dave Johnson, and grandfather of Super Stock driver Andrew Johnson.

Along with seven feature races, fans also were able to also witness bus racing before the heat events and prior to the feature events.

For Tim Johnson, his night ended early in the Super Stock race with car issues, while Dave Johnson finished fourth in the Stock Car feature. Andrew Johnson was a fourth place finisher in the Super Stock feature.

Brandon Bombardo is well known within the Hobby Stock class as a very skilled driver and those skills were on display in the 15-lap feature. Starting on the fourth row along Chris Seidel, Bombardo brought out a caution flag two laps into the race and was sent to the back of the 14-car field and he worked his way back through traffic, and with an average lap time of 19.988, finished in front of Ryan Kleinchmidt and Scott Herron to claim his third win of the season.

Only eight cars made the start of the Stock Car feature race, but the racing in the 20-lap feature was intense between the top three cars driven by Kris Peterson, Tim Gonska and Rob Van Mil.

Gonska and Peterson started on the front row with Peterson getting out to the lead. Despite losing a right front shock early in the race, Van Mil took over second place from Gonska on lap three and after Gonska took it back for laps six and seven, Van Mil regained it on lap eight.

Van Mil was able to catch Peterson for first place on lap 11, but Peterson took it right back one lap later. Using exceptional blocking skills, Peterson held back numerous challenges from VanMil and Peterson was the winner at the checkered flag by .507 seconds over VanMil.

In the Modified feature race, running an average lap time of 18.24 seconds, Aaron Johnson ran away from the field, leading 15 of the 20 laps to his second win of the season with a game of 9.487 seconds over second place finisher Devin Foquette, who led the first five laps of the race before being overtaken by Johnson. The tightest racing was between teammates AJ Viehauser and Shawn Fletcher who battled for third place all night with Viehauser getting the spot in front of Fletcher who finished fourth.

Last week, it was veteran driver Shane Sabraski making an appearance in the Super Stock feature and coming away with the win. Dave Mass is no stranger to the track and he made his first start Saturday and he claimed the win in front of Dylan Nelson and Austin Niemeyer.

David Siercks led the Northern Sportmod feature through the first nine laps, but he brought out a caution flag on a restart and was sent to the back of the field. That opened the door for Jake Hagemann to get his second win of the season, running at an average time of 18.559 seconds. Tim Bergerson took second place and Jake Kierstead grabbed the third spot.

Tommy Bawden picked up his second win of the season for the Mod Four class and Nathan Kohl stayed perfect on the season with his third win for the Sports Compact class.