ANDERSON – For the seventh time in his career Jeff Marcum has been crowned the champion of the McGunegill Engine Performance Late Model division at Anderson Speedway.
Marcum put an exclamation point on his season by setting fast-time during qualifying barely beating the effort of visiting driver Scotty Tomasik by three-thousands of a second.
During the 40-lap feature Marcum jumped into the lead chased by Tommy Cook and Danny Trent.
Season Championship Week 1 – Race Results
Tomasik was the driver on the move after starting back in the pack using a bump and run move on Ryder VanAlst on lap seven to move into the fourth place.
He passed Cook for third on lap 11 and Trent to move into second on lap 14 but by that time Marcum built up a comfortable lead for this third win in the local division and sixth overall at Anderson Speedway.
Tomasik finished 3.4-seconds behind Marcum with Trent, Cook and Cassten Everidge rounding out the top five.
“I knew the 4 car (Tomasik) was a fast car and I knew Scotty was coming,” Marcum said in the Riley & Sons Victory Lane. “I wanted to get out front.”
The best race of the night was the battle for the Thunder Roadster championship between John Robbins and Doug Dugger.
Robbins set fast time during qualifying to close the gap on Dugger and the two ran nose to tail for the entire feature race.
In victory lane Robbins said his teammate Xavier King told him he was over driving into the corner and the advance paid off with a pole run over Dugger by 3-hundreds of a second.
A late caution flag waved with three laps remaining when Cody Demers and Nick Siegler tangled in turn two.
Over the course of the final three laps Dugger attempted to get inside of Robbins to secure the victory and the championship, but came up .221-seconds short.
Marshal Thompson, Brad Kendell and Demers rounded out the top five.
Ron Phipps led the entire distance to capture the Ford Division championship and was pressed for the point the entire distance by visiting driver Caleb Burge. Randy Owen, Owen Aaron and Austin Ward completed the top five.
