By Ken de la Bastide

(May 5, 2013) - The 2013 season couldn’t have gotten off to a better start for Curtis Chapman, who returned to action at Anderson Speedway following a year away from racing.

Chapman won the opening 100-lap race and has captured three pole positions in the WMDH ThunderCar Division.

In the first of two scheduled features on Saturday, Chapman came back through the pack after a lap seven incident while battling with Tom Gossar to win the feature.

It was a rough night for the division. Robbie Wyman broke during practice, Larry Sargent didn’t start the feature and Danny Stanley Jr. completed only two laps before an engine failure.

At the start Gossar took the lead with Chapman moving up from the fourth spot to run second after only five laps. While the two drivers were attempting to pass a slower car entering turn three, there was contact which sent Gossar into outside retaining wall. Chapman was sent to the tail of the field.

That gave Jeff Hopkins the lead followed by Trent Gossar and Eddie Richardson. But there continued to be excitement up front and on lap 11 Hopkins spun on the back straight after contact with Trent Gossar with both drivers sent to the rear of the pack.

On the restart Chapman took the lead from Eddie Richardson with an inside pass going down the back straight and then held off Trent Gossar for the win.

Richardson’s race ended along the front straight retaining wall after contact with another car.

Following Chapman and Trent Gossar to the checkers were Hopkins, Austin Russell and Chris Snyder.

“I want to apologize to Tom (Gossar),” Chapman said. “It wasn’t entirely my fault. It was two guys going for the same spot.”

The scheduled second feature was halted by rain after seven laps and the remaining 18 laps will be run the next time the division is on the racing program.

When the rains began to fall, Jeff Hopkins was leading chased by Rob Allman and Chapman.