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On August 20th, Lansing’s John Hernly took the win at Wall Township Speedway in New Jersey, wrapping up the inaugural Michigan Circle Track Sim-Racing League season and earning the Championship title. The race at the fast and fun 1/3 mile track, with its steep, thirty degree banked corners and sixteen degree banked straights, was a great way to wind up the first 15 week season. After the qualifying session, I unfortunately hit the wrong button, causing the race to begin with a lottery start. The nine drivers in attendance were assigned starting positions at random. This placed the fast cars of Hernly and Orlando Florida’s Super Late Model driver Mark Adams in the back of the field. “This might actually be a lot of fun to start back here.” said Adams over the voice channel. Ken Shook of Montrose was assigned the pole position.

The yellow flag made its first appearance on lap 1 before the drivers even reached the back straight. KC Foote of Paw Paw got into the back of Hernly’s No.64 ECCI / TV Land Chevy going into turn one. The contact sent the two drivers spinning out of turn two. On the restart, League Administrator and driver, Craig Bristol of Witherbee, NY, got the hole-shot on Shook and took the lead. On lap 13, Foote was in the thick of it again, this time getting into the back of the No.61 of Plainwell’s Tom TerMeer, sending TerMeer’s car hard into the outside guard rail. After barrel rolling down the steep bank, TerMeer’s destroyed racecar limped behind the wall and he was done for the night. Following the restart on lap 20, Bristol’s No.3 Ford pushed up on the exit of turn two which caused him to make contact with the guardrail. This handed the lead over to Mark Adams and ended Bristol’s night as well. Prior to the yellow being displayed for Bristol’s incident, Foote again got into the back of someone. This time it was Shook in the No.34. The contact occurred on the straightaway and Shook was able to save it after getting a bit loose, however it was a three strikes deal for Foote and he was ejected from the race. Green flag in the air once again, this time it was Adams’ turn to give the lead away. Adams executed a brilliant save after getting loose exiting turn four, but Herny was right there to capitalize on it and took the top position. A similar slip up by Adams later in the race gave Kalamazoo’s Phil Loedeman the opportunity to grab the second place spot from Adams. The race stayed Hernly, Loedeman, Adams until lap 85 when Adams’ right front tire gave out and he pounded the wall, taking him out of the race. Hernly took the checkered flag, followed by Loedeman in second and Shook in third.

“I’ve got to tell you that this series has been a blast. Running all these short tracks definitely brings back memories of my days as a quarter midget racer” said Hernly following the race. “Tonight, I thought I was going to be in a dog-fight with Loedeman there at the end. He was catching me and had a chance to beat me with an old Microsoft Sidewinder wheel. My hat is off to him.” Hernly mentioned that he plans on running a limited schedule during the upcoming Fall season so that he can attend to some personal projects.

Speaking of the new MCT-SRL season, it got underway on August 27th at Galesburg Speedway. The quarter mile pancake flat Galesburg track, though slower, still provided for challenging racing. The first time MCT-SRL visited Galesburg was for the final race of pre-season testing back on April 30th of this year. That race ranks as one of the league’s best ever, so I was hoping for a good turnout. Unfortunately, we had a small field, due in part to a special event elsewhere the same evening that a few of our regular drivers participated in.

New York’s Terry Stiles took the pole for the 80 lap event, with a 15.243 second qualifying lap (59.044 mph). Josh “Blinky” Walker of Ringgold, GA, driving the No.83 Krystal Burgers Chevy, led the race on a couple of occasions, grabbing the lead away from Craig Bristol for the final time on lap 51. Walker drove away from the field thereafter, going on to take the win.

MCT-SRL Season 1: Wall Township Race Results 08/20/2009

MCT-SRL Season 1: Final Standings after 15 races

MCT-SRL Season 2: Galesburg Speedway Race Results 08/27/2009

MCT-SRL Fall Season schedule