Titusville, Pennsylvania driver, Rob Blair has scaled back his racing operation in 2011, but he picked up his first Northern Tier Inc ULMS win tonight at McKean County Raceway. Blair picked up $2500 in winning the Jim Duffy Memorial and also collected a guaranteed starting spot for the Priority Care RaceFAN 50 in September. Other winners during the night were Adam Sixt, Andy Michael, Bob Close and Brad Ullman.

The “Titusville Terror” and “Hollywood” Mike Knight would pace the 20 car field to John Powell’s green flag and it was the ULMS point leader, Knight jumping into the early lead only to see Andy Boozel spin in turn 3 to bring out the yellow as lap one was completed. Knight chose the outside lane on the restart and charge into turn one as the leader of lap two with Blair and Chad Valone in tow. Matt Lux would get by Valone for third on lap three as Blair hounded Knight for the lead and on lap five it was Blair back to the point over Knight, Lux, Valone and Dennis Lunger.

Lap seven would see the yellow lights flash again for debris setting up a another double file restart. On the start the field got jumbled up and Bump Hedman would get turned sideways and resulted in his car taking a lazy roll on its roof bringing out the red flag. Blair and Knight would pace the field again to the green and the Won11 of Blair would exit turn two in the lead as Lunger now was in third with Dave Hess up to fifth. Blair was starting to check out away from Knight as Lunger and Valone battled for third. After a lap 16 yellow Valone would get third from Lunger on the restart as Blair again pulled away from Knight. The battle now was for fourth as Hess started to apply the pressure on Lunger as the laps clicked off and with the checkers falling it was Rob Blair winning by several car lengths over ULMS point leader, Mike Knight, Chad Valone, Lunger and Hess rounding out the top five.

The mini stocks were awarded with the first feature of the night as Dave Lowe Jr and Joe Boylan led the field to start. It was Boylan getting to the front first with defending track champion, Brad Ullman into second as lap one clicked off the board. Ullman would challenge Boylan throughout the event and on lap eleven would make his move to grab the top spot as Boylan would have mechanical problems. This moved Tom Boylan now into second with Chad Babcock into third. Babcock would grab second on the last lap from Boylan with Ullman capturing the checkers. Riley Ellison and Duane Powers rounded out the top five.

The Emods had the Bill Southwell cars of Bob Close and Butch Southwell on the front row leading the fourteen car field. Close rocketed into the lead over his teammate with Dave Hess in third. Hess would take second from Southwell as he slipped high coming out turn two allowing not only Hess but Travis Asel to move up to fourth. Hess would track Close but couldn’t get no closer than a few car lengths. Close would hit lap traffic with five to go as it appeared maybe Hess could narrow the margin, but Close who masterfully knows MCR guided the Southwell #75s machine and easily picked up his first Emod win of the year over Hess, Asel, Southwell and Vic Vena who made a late charge to get to fifth.

Matt Cobb of Bradford and Adam Sixt of Sardinia, New York paced the eighteen car with Sixt just rocketing into the lead over Cobb and former track champion, John Lacki in third. Sixt was on a mission as he was checking out over the field as Lacki applied heavy pressure on Cobb with Max Blair moving into fifth looking for fourth. With the halfway point it was Sixt out in front by a half straightaway over Lacki who would claim the second spot. Blair was up to third with Steve Dixon and Cobb in fifth. The yellow would come out on lap 18 for a three car incident in turn two and at the same time Cobb would get involved in a incident on the back stretch ending his fine run. On the restart, Dixon would make a power move to second. As the field roared out of four, Lacki would get under Blair and push the Blair machine into the car of Brian Haggerty who was sent sliding thru the infield and roll onto his side against a grader tire. Lacki was asked to leave the race for rough driving. After the red flag shakeup, Sixt was still your leader over Dixon who was chomping at the bit. Young Tommy Kronenwetter Jr. was now third over Blair and Damien Bidwell. Sixt took off on the restart and Dixon soon realized he had to settle for second which he did and the finish was Sixt, Dixon, Kronenwetter in fine third place finish with Blair and Bidwell rounding out the top five.

The final event of a wild night was the street stocks. Andy Michael and Steve Mowery led the field to the green with Michael and his 17x machine getting to the lead first. Mowery followed with Randy Taylor right in the mix. Tayler and Mowery would swap second back and forth in laps four thru six as Michael pulled away. The car on the move was Josh Wilcox who was up to fourth by lap eleven from his eleventh starting spot. Taylor would take second back again on lap fourteen but by that time Michael was halfway back to his home in Allegany, NY! The checkers flew and it was Michael picking up his second straight win over Taylor, Mowery, Wilcox and Chris Austin in fifth.

MCR will be back in action on Wednesday, July 27 when the national professional drivers of the World of Outlaw Late Model Series roll into MCR for the first time ever for a $8000 to win event. Entries from Georgia, South Carolina, Kentucky, West Virginia and far away as Wisconsin are expected for this event. The ever so popular United Emod Series will be also on the card with the street stocks. Racing starts at 7PM with time trials for the World of Outlaw Late Models.

RESULTS:

ULMS Jim Duffy Memorial:

ROB BLAIR, Mike Knight, Chad Valone, Dennis Lunger, Dave Hess, Greg Oakes, Dutch Davies, Jason Dupont, Jeff Hoffman, Andy Boozel, Brent Rhebergen, Dick Barton, Boom Briggs, David Scott, Doug Ricotta, Matt Lux, Bump Hedman, Paul Grigsby, Derek Frank, Greg Satterlee

Mini Stocks:
BRAD ULLMAN, Chad Babcock, Tom Boylan, Riley Ellison, Duane Powers, Shawn Byerly, Eric Canfield, Michael Oakes, Davey Lowe Jr., Joe Boylan, Jeff Buhl, Theresa Shelley, Taylor Jacobs, Dave Kineston

Emods:
BOB CLOSE, Dave Hess, Travis Asel, Butch Southwell, Vic Vena, Nathan Hill, Rich Michael, Brent Rhebergen, Mike Eschrich, Tim Peterson, Jaben Hill, Alex Froman, Leonard Enos, Darren Tarabori

Fastrak Late Models:
ADAM SIXT, Steve Dixon, Tommy Kronenwetter, Max Blair, Damien Bidwell, Justin Tatlow, Jr Peters, Darren Peters, Brad Mesler, John Haggerty, Cody Mason, Justin Smith, Matt Cobb, Kyle Zimmerman, Brian Haggerty, Ron Baker, Ike Fanton, John Lacki (DQ) and Patrick Willar (DNS)

Street Stocks:
ANDY MICHAEL, Randy Taylor, Steve Mowery, Josh Wilcox, Chris Austin, Craig Rex, Kevin Dzuroff, Scott Fuller, Patrick Yohe, Steve Field, Mark Schweikart, Joe Chamberlain, Chris Conkey, Steve Sklar, Bruno Mowery, Rich Hemphill, Ron Budinger