By Ken de la Bastide
ANDERSON, Ind. (May 20, 2015) – Ohio driver Jimmy McCune jumped into the lead at the start and dominated the entire winged sprint race to record the victory at Anderson (IN) Speedway on Wednesday, May 20.
With McCune opening up a straight away lead in the Must See Racing 60 presented by Sam Pierce Chevrolet the battle was for second place between Chris Neusenschwander, Jacob Wilson and Aaron Pierce for all 60 laps.
Wilson, the two-time defending Pay Less Little 500 champion, tried to use the high groove to pick-up the second spot but Neusenschwander wouldn’t give up the preferred racing line.
With ten laps remaining Pierce faded from the second place battle and had to settle for fourth place. Mickey Kempgens came up in fifth, the last car running.
During the warm-up laps for the race, fast qualifier Jo Jo Helberg appeared to have a mechanical failure and spun on the back straight. The cars of Sam Davis, Ron Koehler, Dave Baumgardner and Ryan Burdett were collected. Helberg and Baumgardner didn’t start the feature.
Clayton Gaines capped off a career night with a nifty move on the last lap to climb from third to first to score his first feature win in the Mel Kenyon Midgets.
Kyle O’Gara chased early leader Logan Huggler for 23 of the 30 laps finally making the move to take the lead with an inside move in turn three.
With O’Gara and Huggler battling behind a slower car, Gaines went to the outside entering turn three and scored the win at the stripe.
“I’m pretty excited,” Gaines said in the AutoFarm McCrocklin Ford Winner’s Circle. “I knew they were battling on the inside so I went to the outside.
Behind the front runners there was a three-car battle for third between Jessica Bean, Dameron Taylor and Ashlea Albertson.
Bean was able to hold off her two closest competitors with Albertson and Taylor rounding out the top six. The three were separated by less than three-tenths of a second.
Taylor’s run was impressive because he started on the last row following a mechanical problem during qualifying.
Gaines, a junior at Alexandria High School captured his first career fast time with the series and scored his second career heat win.
Reserve seat tickets for Saturday’s 67th Pay Less Little 500 presented by UAW-GM are priced at $30 and can be purchased at the Anderson Speedway ticket office daily and on race day.
For additional information on Anderson Speedway, visit www.andersonspeedway.com or contact Anderson Speedway at (765) 642-0206.
