Photo Credit: Ashley McCubbin
With the fourth and final Dickies OSCAAR Outlaws Presented by London Recreational Racing event of the season at Sunset Speedway in the books, it’s a complete sweep for Kevin Cornelius. On Sunday afternoon in what is set to be his final race at Sunset Speedway, Cornelius held off J.R. Fitzpatrick on a late race restart en route to scoring the victory in the Velocity 250 presented by McColl Racing Enterprises.
“Man, that was an emotional day,” Cornelius commented in victory lane. “We’ve had a lot of success here and had a lot of good times and made a lot of friends here. It’s – man, I don’t know what to say. It was emotional. I was pretty nervous getting into the car. I wanted to end on a good note here.
“I got to thank everybody that has cheered for us and allowed us to come out every week and put on a show. Couldn’t be here without Mike McColl and all the hard work that his guys put in. My guys put in a lot of work so we can come out on top every week – Grant (Mitchell), Ron (Quesnelle), Keith (Maiato), Jim (Locking), and my father-in-law Dick (Launspach) who funds this deal. It’s been a fun ride. It’s been great.”
For the current series points leader with only one race remaining on the calendar, it marks his seventh victory on the tour in the eight races thus far this season. It also marks a complete sweep of the Sunset Speedway events as he won each of the four events this season. Notably in the past eight races at Sunset, Cornelius has finished in the top-three, highlighted by six victories, including the last five in a row.
2014 OSCAAR Champion Andrew Gresel started off the afternoon in victory lane as he won the first heat ahead of Shawn Chenoweth, Gord Shepherd, Dwayne Baker, Rob Gibson, Tyler Hawn and Glenn Watson. Kelly Balson had a good run going, but broke something mechanical and pulled off track.
Kevin Cornelius won the second heat ahead of J.R., Fitzpatrick, Corey Jones, Sean Grosman, Todd Campbell and Roy Passer.
Roy Passer won the third heat ahead of Campbell, Gibson, Gresel, Chenoweth, Baker, Watson, Gary Passer and Gowan.
J.R. Fitzpatrick won the fourth and final heat ahead of Jones, Balson, Grosman, Cornelius, Shepherd and Hawn.
Following the heats with the invert, it’d be Rob Gibson starting the No. 3 D.C United Roofing SLM on pole ahead of Sean Grosman, Todd Campbell, Shawn Chenoweth, Kevin Cornelius, Corey Jones, Andrew Gresel, J.R. Fitzpatrick, Kelly Balson, Tyler Hawn, Glenn Watson, Shane Gowan, Gary Passer and Gord Shepherd.
The drop of the green flag would see Grosman put the No. 29 For Your Eyes Only of Toronto, The Landing Strip Gentleman’s Club of Toronto, Flagship Properties, SL Promotions and Rylex Glass & Mirror SLM out front into the lead ahead of Roy Passer, Cornelius, Gresel and Balson.
Cornelius would then get by Passer to move up into second, bringing Gresel through with him. Passer would now run fourth as Fitzpatrick and Balson battled for fifth. Fitzpatrick would get by Balson for fifth at lap four, followed by a pass on Roy Passer for fourth a lap later. Roy now ran fifth ahead of Balson.
At the front of the field, Cornelius would track down Grosman for the lead, getting alongside him at lap six. Cornelius would then put the No. 17 Shane Michaels Sales/Sandbox Tech Child Care/Triplecrete/Ed’s Automotive/Hanson Pipe/J.D. Smith Carpentry & Renovations/Fierce Wraps/McColl Racing Enterprises SLM out front on lap eight.
Grosman would solidly slot into second ahead of Gresel, Fitzpatrick and Balson. Gresel would then get by Grosman for second at lap 11, bringing Fitzpatrick through with him. Grosman now ran fourth ahead of Balson as Chenoweth and Roy Passer battled for sixth. Chenoweth would get the spot on lap 13 ahead of Passer, while Jones ran eighth ahead of Watson and Campbell. Watson would then get alongside Jones for eighth at lap 17, but was unable to complete the pass. Instead, Jones would get alongside Passer for the seventh spot.
With 14 laps on the board, Cornelius would lead ahead of Gresel, Fitzpatrick, Grosman, Balson, Chenoweth, Jones, Roy Passer, Watson, Campbell, Shepherd and Gowan. Fitzpatrick would then get by Gresel for the second spot at lap 24, as Watson got alongside Passer for eighth; Watson would then complete the pass a lap later.
With the laps continuing to count down, it seemed that the race would run green to checkered without a caution. However, that didn’t’ end up being the case as the caution would fly with six laps to go for Campbell spinning in turn four. With six laps left on the board, Cornelius led Fitzpatrick, Grosman, Balson and Chenoweth as Jones, who was running sixth, got the lucky dog to get back on the lead lap.
Kevin Cornelius would choose the outside for the restart, and it’d work out in his favor as he was able to lead the rest of the way to the victory. Post-race, he stated that he was concerned about the final restart as the car had started to go away with about 15 laps to go.
“We started to get real loose,” he commented. “Put some wedge into it and it seemed to pick up a little bit; but when that caution came out, I thought we were done. We managed to hold them off for five laps so it was good enough, I guess.”
J.R. Fitzpatrick would hold off Andrew Gresel to finish second, which marks his fifth straight top-two finish.
“We knew that we had to be aggressive,” he commented. “We knew we had a good car on the long run but I broke a left rear rotor off, so pretty scary last 10 laps. Thankful, we brought it home in one piece. I mean, it broke the rotor right off so I’m not really sure what to say but thankful it’s in one piece.”
Fitzpatrick added that the broken rotor was why he was loose through the final portion of the race, and why he made the decision to run the top line for the second half of the race.
“I started running the top so I could use the top with less brake and started catching Kevin (Cornelius),” Fitzpatrick commented. “Then I started bouncing off the wall and stuff, and that rotor is completely gone. It’s pretty wild.”
For Gresel, it marks his first podium finish in only his second start of the season as he finished fourth last month at Flamboro Speedway. Reflecting back on his race, getting around the lap cars wasn’t something that worked out for him.
“The guys were high, low – not really moving out of the way,” Gresel commented. “J.R. (Fitzpatrick) kind of got us there with that lap car. It didn’t work out in our favor, that’s for sure. All in all, it was a good run for us today. We’ve only run this thing one other time this year. We’ve been spending all of our time on the other car in the APC Series so I was pretty happy with it. I wish I would’ve had more for him at the end, though.”
The Sauble Falls Racing driver was also satisfied as he missed practice earlier in the day due to having to fix a broken panhard bar.
Sean Grosman would finish fourth ahead of Kelly Balson, Shawn Chenoweth and Corey Jones. Glenn Watson finished as the first car one lap down in seventh ahead of Gord Shepherd, Todd Campbell, Roy Passer, Shane Gowan and Gary Passer.
The Dickies OSCAAR Outlaws Presented by London Recreational Racing will complete their season at Peterborough Speedway as part of the Autumn Colors Classic weekend.
