National Sand Drag News - PTN Cleves May '09 Race Recap

Race Recap

Race 1 of the 2009 Pro Truck Nationals series at the IOK 4 Wheelers’ grounds in Cleves, OH was a huge success. A large contingent of Michigan and Missouri racer s showed up to compete with the Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky locals. Rich Simon and the PTN crew worked along side the IOK crew headed by Dave Ohmer and Jerry Hamilton to put on a smooth and organized event. Let’s take a look at the on track action.

Pro Truck

Twenty-one entries converged on Cleves to compete in the first event of the 2009 series. Ben Dozeman led qualifying in the class with a 3.759 earning him self a first round bye. After some great racing action, the final three that emerged were Ohio’s Casey Kellough with his roadster, Michigan’s Dave Kramer with the “Super Toy” Jeep, and another Michigan racer Mike Bolyard in his Bronco. Kramer would have the bye into the final round, setting up the other match up between Kellough and Bolyard. Kellough would squeak out a close win to set up an Ohio versus Michigan final round. In the final, Kellough took a starting line advantage and didn’t look back to take home the win and $1000 winner’s check.

Casey Kellough won the Season Opening Pro Truck class title.

Dave Kramer readies for another run on his way to a runner-up finish in Pro Truck.

Despite being plauged with converter problems, Mike Bolyard battled through to a semi-final round finish at Cleves.

Casey Kellough (center) picking up his $1,000 winner's check with the head of PTN Rich Simon (left) and PTN Announcer Isaac DeHaan (right).

Dave Kramer (Right) receiving his runner-up trophy and check from PTN's Rich Simon.

Mike Bolyard (Right) picks up his semi-final Pro Truck check from Rich.

Fastest 4WD

Another of the featured classes in the Pro Truck Nationals series is the Fastest 4WD Shootout. This class was plagued with breakage and problems throughout the weekend. Josh Stephens brought his “Blown Income” BAE Hemi-powered Altered to run in the Shootout. On Friday night, he had drive shaft breakage on his test pass and also had a slight run-in with the guard rail. The car would be okay, but the drive shaft could not be repaired for action on Saturday. Stephens ended up driving John Dreher’s car during eliminations. Ben Steele also entered the shootout with his Altered and ended up hurting his motor, keeping him out of eliminations. This set up a shootout between Missourians Terry Wies and Josh Stephens. Terry would lay down a 3.49 to defeat Josh’s 3.75 for the event win.

Terry Wies (Far Lane) making a time trial pass prior to his Fastest 4WD Shootout victory.

Josh Stephens, driving John Dreher's Altered, took home the Fastest 4WD runner-up finish.

Wies (right) picked up his $500 Winner's check from PTN's Rich Simon.

Josh Stephens (right) with his runner-up trophy from the Fastest 4WD class.

3.50 Index

Friday night’s action was capped by the PTN series’ 3.50 Index class. Seven entries went for the guaranteed $500 to win purse. Eliminations kicked off with the Michigan entries of Mike Page and Ben Dozeman facing off. Mike would run the quickest ET of eliminations with a 3.67; however it would not be enough to track down Dozeman’s 3.69 after a starting line advantage. Eliminations moved on to the semi-final round where Dozeman would face off with Kentucky’s Ben Steele. Dozeman took the lead off the line and won with a 3.70 to Steele’s 3.74. The other semi-final match up would see Missouri’s John Dreher run a 3.73 to defeat Ohio’s Kathy Ellington running a 3.78. This set up a Michigan versus Missouri final round. Ben would take a .024 to .053 advantage off the line and hang on for a hole shot victory, 3.779 to 3.755.

Ben Dozeman (Far Lane) had the wheels in the air regularly on his way to the 3.50 Index class victory.

John Dreher put in a great effort en route to a runner-up finish in the 3.5 Index category.

Grudge Matches

There were two Grudge Matches that were part of Friday night’s action. Both of these races were heavily promoted on the Sand Drag Central forum and drew a lot of crowd interest. The first race up was the Matt Ewing (Shocker Racing) versus Brian McWethy Snowmo Quad match race. Ewing over came a hole shot by McWethy to take a 3.98 to 4.14 win. The other Grudge Match was the heavily anticipated Supercharged Jeep race between Ben Dozeman’s roots-blown small block CJ versus Jay Steele’s Procharged small block J10. The lighter weight Jeep of Dozeman laid down an impressive 3.69/88mph pass to defeat Steele’s 3.83.

Bracket Action

Two cars classes and two ATV classes made up the rest of the event’s program. The bracket car classes are split down the center by dial times into a Fast (Bracket 1) and Slow (Bracket 2) class. The final round of the Bracket 1 class came down to local Curtis Combs in his alky-injected Altered against Michigan’s Brent Lokker with his alky-injected Jeep. Brent had problems down track giving Curtis the big win. In the Bracket 2 class, two local racers faced off with Chad Hill taking his Jeep to the win over Keith Mantra’s truck. The ATV classes were heavily populated by the Michigan contingent. Pro ATV saw an all-Michigan Father-Son final of Shocker Racing with dad Steve taking the victory over son Matt. The ATV final saw Michigan’s Matt Willis take the big victory over a local Chris (?) in the final round. Winners of Junior class action were Dustin Smith (Juniors) and Jacob Rouse (Peewees).

Bracket 1 Class Final: Winner Curtis Combs (Near Lane) vs. Runner-up Brent Lokker (Far Lane).

Brent Lokker was the runner-up in the Bracket 1 class with his Jeep.

Chad Hill (Near Lane) won the Bracket 2 class over Keith Mantra (Far Lane).

Matt Willis won the Sportsman ATV class in Cleves.

Steve Ewing (Near Lane) defeated son Matt Ewing (Far Lane) in the Pro ATV final round.

Photo Bonus

Sand Drag Central's Mike Ellington readies for another Pro Truck class pass.

PTN's Rich Simon making another pass in his Pro Truck.

Ryan Fredricks purging the Nitrous on the way to making antoher Pro Truck class pass with his Jeep.

Nathan Sneed raced this dragster in the Bracket 1 class; note the Big Eliminator hill in the background.

Krista Randolph readying to make a pass in this nice Bronco.

Another look at Mike Bolyard's great looking Bronco.

Mike Ellington (Near Lane) pulling out of the staging lanes against Rodney Upchurch (Far Lane).

The Bad Frog Team getting ready to send driver Scott Scheytt down the track on an exhibition pass.

Copyright NSDN Photos.