Free Show Thrills Fans

Thousands of fans filled Anderson Speedway Friday evening for a free evening of entertainment which featured some awesome racing and a giant fireworks show. Fortville's David McHenry continued his winning ways in the Chappy's Rent To Own Front Wheel Drive cars while Anderson's Brandon Leisure and Roy Grissom Sr. captured the ThunderCar Oval and ThunderCar Figure  8.

Rick Capps lead the Front Wheel Drive feature from the get-go. McHenry, who started 19th, worked his way through traffic and then used a late-race caution to settle in behind the leader with three laps to go. Upon the return to green, McHenry made quick work of Capps and sailed on to his third straight FWD victory. Trailing were Capps, Kevin Rhodus, Carol Beeman and Patrick Spillis. Scott Roberts took the win in heat  only to be disqualified or failing technical inspection. This handed the win to Rhodus over David Baker and McHenry. Three different drivers led the second heat with Capps taking the hard fought win over Chris Teepe and Sam Banta.

The 34-car ThunderCar Oval had two scary incidents which hailed red flags. The first occurred on lap five when Ranny Hinton hit the turn 3 rubber safety barriers head on, with his car vaulting back in front of A.J. Jones.

Jones's car smacked Hinton's so hard it tore a wheel off and knocked the fuel cell out of the car. Both drivers were ok. Early leader Eric Evans gave way to Jack Taylor on lap three only to see Leisure take at the halfway point. Then on lap 14 William Coffman also slammed turn 3 with the red again flying. Again, all drivers were ok. Leisure went on to victory over Taylor, Joe Walters, Evans and Tim Brown. Leisure also took the first heat checker over Grissom and Walters while Evans was the victor in heat No. 2 over Taylor and Hinton.

The ThunderCar Figure 8 was again one of those thrillers. Josh Tharp challenged all comers at the crossover and threaded the needle successfully until he found his brother Matt Tharp there at the same time.

Neither gave an inch and it was crash time in the "x". With the Tharp brothers ok and shaking hands, the battle resumed with Grissom capturing his first Figure 8 of the year. A mad spinning scramble on the last lap in positions second through fifth saw Josh Myers, Mike Peters, James Peterson and Phil Jenkins finish in that order.

The giant fireworks show followed the racing program presented by Anderson Speedway and the Little 500 Festival in celebration of the 55th running of the Payless/Delco Remy Little 500 Sprint Car Classic Saturday evening at 8:00 p.m. All seats are reserved and tickets are available at the gate.

For additional information contact Anderson Speedway at (765) 642-0206.