A QUARTET OF $1,000 WINNERS KICK-OFF ELDORA’S UMP DIRTcar NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS

Barber, Bowersock, Gilpin and Ruhlman Prevail Over 116 Cars from Ten States and Canada

ROSSBURG, OH (October 3) – On a typical race night, about one-third of the field gets to compete in the headlining feature event.   The certainly wasn’t the caseThursday night in Eldora Speedway’s opening leg of the UMP DIRTcar National Championships, as 96 of the 116 competing Modifieds advanced to not one, but four headliners.  Capturing $1,000 pay days were Bryan Barber, Jerry Bowersock, Devin Gilpin and Brian Ruhlman.

The route to those four main events entailed eight preliminary heat races and four B-Features and that will be the same map to be used Friday night in leg number two of the three-day event. 

A driver’s best finish over the two nights will then be used to line-up Saturday’s ‘alphabet soup’ of feature events; with the best 20 locked into one of the 32-starting positions.   The balance will come from the preceding features, along with four ‘point provisional’ positions.  

That bodes well for Barber, Bowersock, Gilpin and Ruhlman who pretty much locked themselves in Thursday.   The balance of the field that represented ten states and Canada will get shot number two on Friday.   Joining the Modifieds Saturday will be the UMP DIRTcar Late Models as both feature events that night reward the winner with $5,000.

Barber kicked off the night with a strong run that was made a little more difficult in the closing laps.   He had built up a comfortable margin over Ray Bollinger and Aaron Orr that was eliminated two laps from the finish as a spinning car collected both of them and relegated them to the pit area.   That moved up Chad Kinder and Jacob Hawkins into second and third, and when the checkered flag flew that was how they crossed the line.

Bowersock used his knowledge of Eldora and his multiple championships to ride him to a strong win over Andy Sprague and Jimmy Payne, while Gilpin’s thrilling victory came at the expense of Dean Hoffman and Matt Mevert.

Closing out the night was Ruhlman in a daring last-lap pass over Matt Westfall, with a rapidly closing Kent Robinson right there in third.

Complete event information, time schedules and ticket purchase opportunities for the Friday and Saturday legs of the National Championships may be found onwww.EldoraSpeedway.com.

A-Feature 1:  1)Bryan Barber 2)Chad Kinder 3)Jacob Hawkins 4)Kyle Strickler 5)Bart Hartman 6)Curt Spalding 7)Danny Schwartz 8)Brian Lynn 9)Ed Roley 10)Jeff Leka 11)Nathon Loney 12)Jon Henry 13)Jim Farris, Sr. 14)Dave Wietholder 15)David Shain 16)Aaron Raby 17)Mario Toniolo 18)Jeff Daniels 19)Marvin Burton 20)Lynn Johns 21)Ray Bollinger 22)Aaron Orr 23)Andrew Corbin 24)Will Krup

A-Feature 2:  Jerry Bowersock, Andy Sprague 3)Jimmy Payne 4)Jacob Poel 5)Travis Stemler 6)Nick Stroupe 7)Kody Weisner 8)Bryce Jewell 9)Jamie Lomax 10)Doug Adkins 11)Zach Schroeder 12)Steve Dixon 13)Jonathan Taylor 14)Jess Hartman 15)Lance Dehm 16)Mark Kowarsch 17)Steve Billenstein 18)Justin Matson 19)Eric Shepherd 20)Corey Bevard 21)Louis Clements 22)Eddie Shaner 23)Stephen Schnapf 24)Mike Dirksen

A-Feature 3:  1)Devin Gilpin 2)Dean Hoffman 3)Matt Mevert 4)Jeff Curl 5)Jeff Babcock 6)Nick Hoffman 7)Rusty Griffaw 8)Collin Thirlby 9)Scott Williams 10)Rob Williams 11)Nick Allen 12)Tyler Nicely 13)Chad Rosenbeck 14)Gary Eicher 15)Joey Kramer 16)Andrew Terrill 17)Chad Osterhoff 18)Nick Kurtz 19)Joel Watson 20)Tyler Deibert 21)Tim Richardson 22)John Phlipot, Jr. 23)Dylan Woodling 24)Dwight Niehoff

A-Feature 4:  1)Brian Ruhlman 2)Matt Westfall 3)Kent Robinson 4)Trent Young 5)Kenny Wallace 6)Evan Taylor 7)Tanner Wilson 8)Brand Vaughan 9)Jeff Hamby 10)Ryan Sutter 11)Todd Sherman 12)David Mielke 13)John Brooks 14)Kevin Miller 15)Jared Spalding 16)Tim Dalman 17)Gary Turpin 18)Adam Thrush 19)Tom Treon 20)David Treon, Jr. 21)Derrick Austin 22)David Stremme 23)Joel Dick 24)Jacoby Hines