Vinny Arrenegado took his new scoot to victory lane with an excellent display of speed and handling. However, near the end of the race Charlie Rose pushed his way to the front and seemed to be headed for the checkers until he began trailing sparks from underneath with broken equipment dragging on the surface.
Rose had pushed into second after starting eighth and followed Arrenegado from lap 12 on. When Mike Benevides and Mike Teague spun in turn two, the restart showed Vinny and Charlie on the front row. Rose grabbed the lead down the backstretch with Arrenegado in pursuit, himself pursued by Branden Dion and Nick Johnson side-by-side, Gerry DeGasparre, Jr., Ryan Lineham, Anthony Flannery and Jake Johnson. Charlie’s lead began to grow over a persistent Arrenegado until the sparks began to fly from under his car, forcing him to retire with two laps remaining and sending Arrenegado to the checkers. DeGasparre climbed from fifth to second over the final three laps to claim second, followed by Dion, Jake Johnson and ‘16 champ, Dylan Estrella.
Vinny and Flannery made a real battle of it from the get-go and it took Arrenegado until turn two of lap six to forge fully into the lead. Dion rushed up to get under Flannery and they went several laps, wheel-to-wheel. As soon as Dion moved past Flannery, Rose rushed up to jump in underneath while Nick Johnson haunted their bumpers. Arrenegado was ahead by three cars.
Rose moved up to nose under Dion while Uhrig, departing a multi-lap battle with his teammate, Lineham (where their identical cars – 1 and 11, respectively -- had remained wheel-to-wheel) got under Flannery. Lineham then rushed up to Uhrig’s bumper. Uhrig then eased under DeGasparre while Lineham took his place underneath Jake.
Lap 13 saw Arrenegado cruising with Rose bearing in, three cars back. Nick Johnson ran up to Dion’s bumper in search of third place. Their battle would countinue until lap 29.
By lap 17, Flannery was finally able to settle to the groove in fifth place, behind Nick. But by now, Rose’s pursuit had landed him on Arrenegado’s bumper and Nick was all over Dion for third. DeGasparre got by Flannery into fifth while Lineham was working under Uhrig in a dogfight over seventh. By lap 28, Rose had the lead over Arrenegado, Dion, Nick Johnson, DeGasparre, Lineham and Jake Johnson. Next time around, Gerry D pushed under Johnson and into third and Lineham looked to follow. Lineham’s second try got him there while DeGasparre ducked under Dion.
Rose’s exit from the field on lap 33 shuffled the field and DeGasparre succeeded Dion into second behind Arrenegado and Jake Johnson went by Nick Johnson and Dion into fourth with Dylan Estrella following him into fifth.
This was the top five at the finish, while Lineham retained sixth followed by Uhrig, Nick Johnson, Flannery and Dan Johnson. The three-Johnson team of Jake, Nick and Dan thereby finishing all in the top ten.
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