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Springfield, Mo.- The final event of the 2012 season at the Springfield Raceway was held Saturday night with the running of the KMJ Performance Turkey Bowl VI with over 150 race teams with 4 classes competing under a sunny November day as Kyle Beard and Terry Phillips took home the 2 main head-liners in the Late Model and A Modified features.
In the Late Model event, with the ever-growing talk about spoiler heights, Springfield co-owner Jerry Hoffman allowed defending event winner Jack Sullivan to make the call and Sullivan said no spoilers. In return the track offered and extra $500 to the feature winner.
After the redraw, former winner Justin Wells and Mid-south top runner Kyle Beard brought the field to the green flag with Wells grabbing the early lead with Beard, MARS Champion Jesse Stovall, Sullivan, and Terry Phillips in tow. Wells was starting to put some distance out front as the rest of the pack were side by side. Caution waved on lap 6 bunching the field together. On the restart, Beard and Stovall who had been back and fourth saw Beard take back second place as Phillips and Sullivan followed. With Wells leading, lap 15 would see things change as leader Wells jumped the cushion in turn 3 and gathered it back-up while Beard made his way to the leader board as Phillips, Stovall, and Sullivan all followed. The next lap caution flew as things got really tight in turn 3 as the leaders went through lapped traffic. During the caution, Stovall stopped on the frontstretch and asked the officials to look at his car. Under Springfield rules any car that stops during caution on their own goes to the rear. Stovall refused and went to the pits ending his night. With Beard in front , Phillips picked the top lane while Sullivan went down low. Beard quickly jumped to the extreme top groove as the youngster was riding the edge. Phillips and Sullivan went door to door with Sullivan getting around Phillips on lap 17. Sullivan started to gain ground on the bottom lane with Phillips staying top side. On lap 23, Phillips got around Sullivan and began to close-up on Beard as Wells moved around Sullivan to third place. In the closing 5 laps, Phillips got closer but couldn’t make his way around Beard as Beard grabbed the victory with Phillips, Wells, Sullivan and Matt Johnson following. Beard and the GB Trucking team had made a last minute schedule change to compete at the Speedway after planning on going to another event in Tennessee. Bryan Allison captured the Wehrs Machine $500 Product Certificate for the Hard-Charger Award after advancing 9 spots in the 30 lap feature.15 of the 20 starters finished on the lead lap
The A Modified event brought 62 entries to the ‘Quick-Quarter” battling for $1200 to win and $450 to start the feature event. With the redraw it placed defending event winner Terry Phillips and Central Missouri standout Dean Willie on the front row. The feature went green,white checkered for the 25 laps as Terry Phillips drove away with the victory as some great battles were behind the leader. In a touching moment on lap 4, fans and crews stood with 4 fingers in the air in the memory of Mike Clark. The soft-spoken gentleman who really took Dirt Works Race Cars to the high of Modified racing after 1991 and kept many racers on the track every week was honored. Performance Bodies of Iowa had donated $500 to the leader of lap 4 as that was Clark’s old race number. The win for Phillips was worth $1700 including the bonus money as the Springfield standout grabbed his 3rd Turkey win. Following Phillips to the checkered flag was Willie, Jesse Stovall, Bobby Pearish and Jeff Labaube as 17 of the 20 starters finished on the lead lap.
Defending Turkey winner Kris Jackson of Lebanon took the opening lead in the B Modified feature and never looked back as he lead all 20 laps. Jackson kept the middle groove fast as USRA National B Modified champion Scott Drake had to come from the 6th starting spot and was using the extreme high groove. Jackson was using a Spec B mod motor built from Lebanon’s Richmont Engines while Drake has in his GM Performance 602 Crate Motor. Good fast paced racing followed behind the lead duo. 15 of the 20 starters finished on the lead lap in the caution free event which featured an all-star field of drivers.
Joplin’s Justin Comer made the winning move around leader Jay Reynolds on lap 11 to grab the Legends feature which saw 4 wide racing during the early stages. The race only had 1 caution early as front runner Wayne Johnston was involved in an incident in turn 4 ending his night. Dave Comer grabbed the opening lap lead as Reynolds then took command on lap 2 as Chuck Comer followed. Justin Comer moved into the runner-up spot on the restart and began to close in on the fast moving Reynolds. Reynolds was starting to see his car moving up the track during the run as Justin Comer really gathered quickly. 10th place starting Rex Merritt was perhaps the fastest car during the run and was closing quickly but ran out of time. Comer the Springfield Raceway 2012 Legends Champion was followed by Reynolds, Merritt, James McDugle and Dave Comer as 15 of the 22 starters finished on the lead lap.
For off season information about the Springfield Raceway visit the website at WWW.SpringfieldRaceway.Com or visit the Facebook Page.
Results-KMJ Performance Turkey Bowl VI
Late Models-1) Kyle Beard 2) Terry Phillips 3) Justin Wells 4) Jack Sullivan 5) Matt Johnson 6) Brandon Morton 7) Jacob McGhee 8) Mike Hammerle 9) Bryon Allison 10) Dewayne Keifer 11) Don Danner 12) Chris Morelock 13) Larry Jones 14) Darrell Mooneyham 15) Matt Bailey 16) Larry Bratti 17) Mike Harris 18) John Coats 19) Jesse Stovall 20) Matt Zimmerly
A Modifieds 1) Terry Phillips 2) Dean Willie 3) Jesse Stovall 4) Bobby Pearish 5) Jeff Labaube 6) Terry Beckham 7) Luke Wanniger 8) Conrad Miner 9) Rustin Miller 10) Curt Rackers 11) Gary Blackburn 12) Jackie Dalton 13) Mitch Keeter 14) Demey 15) Chad Lyle 16) John Yeoman 17) Brent Holman 18) Jon Sheets 19) Justin Allen 20) Dustin Campbell
B Modifieds 1) Kris Jackson 2) Scott Drake 3) Jon Yeoman Jr 4) Sean Williams 5) Kaleb Copher 6) Trevor Drake 7) Shawn Strong 8) Gary Clark 9) Jesse Sobbing 10) Don Luna 11) Michael Stake 12) Mike Watson 13) Bobby Maggard Jr 14) Rusty Forrest 15) Steve Reetz 16) Bobby Ratterree 17) Toby Thompson 18) Dakota Maggard 19) Doug Scism 20) Jeff Miller
Legends 1) Justin Comer 2) Jay Reynolds 3) Rex Merritt 4) James McDugle 5) Dave Comer 6) Wesley Smith 7) Chuck Comer 8) Calvin Garner 9) Paul Horton 10) Matt Gruenburg 11) Kylan Garner 12) Ted Van Zandt 13) Brandi Young 14) Phil Burkendyle 15) Graysn Cox 16) Jim Body 17) Larry Smoot 18) Charlie Gaines 19) Wayne Johnston 20) Caleb McDugle 21) Tyler Horton 22) Terry Williams