Stock Car Racing: Tim Johnson wins Super Stock

BARROWS — One week ago in the memorial race that bears his father’s name, Super Stock driver Tim Johnson car sat on the infield in Turn One and out of the race after just one lap of the feature event.

Driver Brandon Bombardo sat sideways in his car that was caught up in the catch fence, after rolling his car over numerous times on the back straight-away Friday, May 27, at Princeton Motor Speedway Hobby Stock.

Both Johnson and Bombardo found much better fortune in the feature races Saturday, May 28, at North Central Speedway. Johnson drove to victory in the Super Stock feature, while Bombardo, driving a replacement car, won his heat race and battled his way through the field in the feature event before taking second place to winner Tim Otterness, who captured his first checkered flag in a Hobby Stock at NCS.

Pre-race festivities started with recognition of all service personnel on the Memorial Day weekend. Mod Four driver Gerrald Nohner’s car, sitting just across from the flagstand, was covered with a tribute to the veterans of the Vietnam War, a covering that former driver and current flagman Jess Geesey had featured on his car, as the national anthem was played.

The feature races started with the Super Stock class and Johnson starting on the front row along with Jim Urseth. Johnson got off to a quick start in the 15-lap feature event and held off Urseth for the first two laps and Dustin Nelson after that, and led the entire race on his way to the first place finish.

The Northern Sportmods were next with the strongest car count of the evening with 185 cars making the feature event. Heat 1 winner Mark Martini started from the front row along with rookie driver Alex Morgan, who chose to start from the back of the field. That meant that Heat 2 winner Tim Siercks started from row two.

Martini led from the dropping of the white flag, but a battle developed for the second position, David Siercks took the spot from Luke Ryan on the second lap, but David Siercks caught him on lap five. That was short lived with Chris Siercks catching him on the ninth lap and it was Chris Siercks finishing behind Martini at the end of the race.

The Mod Four win went to Patrick Specht who hadn’t cracked the top five in his first three races of the season, but he made a front row start count, leading 14 of the 15 feature laps count to finish first in front of Josh Litzau and Nohner.

With his normal car out of commission after Friday night’s wreck, Bombardo was able to win his heat race, finishing in front of Tim Otterness. Bombardo noted during intermission that the car was driving even better than his normal car had been.

For the feature race, Jazlyn Nelson drew the top spot and held off the field for the first eight laps before Otterness caught up with her and took over the spot. Nelson did hang on to finish in fourth place, her first top five finish of the season.

Bombardo, who started from the fifth row, had worked his way up and took the second spot with four laps to go, but Otterness held him off and made it a perfect weekend with a win Friday at Princeton and gaining his first career win in a Hobby Stock car at NCS on Saturday.

Nathan Kohl had been the hottest driver at the track in the early part of the season with three feature wins in three tries for the Sport Compact class. It was Brandon Nyberg in victory lane, with his first career win, in front of Kohl and Josh Maleski, who claimed the third spot.

For the second straight week, the Stock Cars gave the fans a great race. Last week, it was Kris Peterson and Rob VanMil running side by side with Peterson gaining the narrow victory. Peterson wasn’t a factor in Saturday’s race, but instead it was Alex Dostal and Tim Gonska dueling for ten laps with Gonska winning by 0.005 in a photo finish over Dostal. It was the first win of the season for Gonska in a class that has had four different winners in the four feature races that have been run.

The Modified class closed out the show with Aaron Johnson notching his third win of the season with a dominant performance. Shawn Fletcher finished second and Devin Fourquette was third. Fouquette has the early points lead over Johnson by seven points and he has finished in the top five in all four races and has one win. Johnson has recorded three victories but finished out of the top 10 in his other feature race.