BARRIE, ON – At the start of the final lap of Sunday night’s CASCAR Super Series race at Cayuga Int’l Speedway, it looked like Mark Dilley was about to bring his #9 Dodge / Mobil1 / Exide / Leland / Avenue MotorWorks / CRS Dodge Charger home with a respectable fifth-place finish.
But in racing, it’s not over until it’s over. Last lap chaos involving the third and fourth-placed drivers boosted Dilley to third at the checkered flag, locking in an ‘all-Dodge podium’ featuring race-winner Dave Whitlock, runner-up Ron Beauchamp Jr. and Dodge-sponsored Charger driver Mark Dilley.
It was a pleasantly surprising turn of events for Dilley, who thought he might have cost his team a shot at a top finish, on lap 65 of the 200-lap race, when he felt he had a tire going down. The Goodyear slick turned out to be fine, but the trip to the pits to check it out sent Dilley to the back of the lead lap cars. From there, the Barrie, ON racer fought his way back through the pack to put himself into position to benefit from the last-lap shuffle.
“I just gave it all she had,” said Dilley, after the race. “I made a bad call, thinking that I had a flat tire when I didn’t. But we fought back as hard as we could after that. The other guys [Don Thomson & Brad Graham] tangled in turn 3 and I’m glad we made it through the mess because I had the pedal down, going for the opening. It was a great result to see my Whitlock Motorsports teammate Dave Whitlock win the race and for us to be on the podium with him, in third.”
Dilley continued, “It was a great night for our sponsors, especially Dodge to have three Chargers finish on the podium in a big race like the ‘Hot Head Henry 200 Powered by Griddly Headz’ here at Cayuga Speedway.”
Prior to the start of the feature race, on Sunday night at Cayuga, the entire time trial and sprint race portion of the program took place on Sunday afternoon, after heavy rain washed away the Saturday schedule.
Mark Dilley posted the seventh-fastest time during the 27-car time trial session, lapping the 5/8-mile Cayuga oval in 21.430 seconds. In his 50-lap qualifying sprint race, soon after, the Dodge-sponsored Charger driver came across the line in third-place.
On the strength of his third-place feature points and his third-place showing in the ‘half-points’ sprint race, Dilley heads to this weekend’s CASCAR Super Series race at Montreal’s Autodrome St-Eustache in sixth-place in the overall points chase.
Looking ahead to Montreal, Dilley said, “We’ve had some good runs of late, so we’re looking forward to St-Eustache. We’ve been fast there at times in the past, and although it’s not my favourite place in terms of our results, I know we’re capable of doing well there. We’re in the hunt, and that pumps you up.”
CAYUGA RACE NOTES: Mark Dilley’s Whitlock Motorsports teammate Dave Whitlock (NTN Bower / Griddly Headz Dodge Charger) won his second CASCAR Super Series race in a month when he took the checkered flag in Sunday night’s Hot Head Henry 200 at Cayuga Int’l Speedway.
Whitlock led a podium sweep by the Dodge Charger contingent, leading Ron Beauchamp Jr. (MOPAR Dodge Charger) and Mark Dilley (Dodge-sponsored Charger) across the start/finish line to end the 200-lap feature race.
Canadian open-wheel racing start Patrick Carpentier made his stock car debut at Cayuga, coming home with a respectable sixth-place result.
This weekend, CASCAR heads to Montreal’s Autodrome St-Eustache for the 10th of 11 events on its 2006 Super Series schedule. The race is a make-up date for a rainout at St-Eustache, earlier in the season.
Prepared by Inside Track Communications // For more information about the #9 Dodge team and its sponsors, visit www.whitlockmotorsports.com. For more on CASCAR, including complete race results, reports, point standings, event schedules and upcoming broadcast times for Super Series races on SPORTSNET, see www.cascar.ca
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