Leslie Essary Grabs Show-Me Series Main At LebanonMidway/Ratterree Tops Factory$$$
by: Ronnie Williams

LEBANON, MO. (Sept. 1, 2006) - With over 115 Race teams in the pits Friday Night action was fast and furious at the Lebanon Midway Speedway as Current Show-Me Racin Series Late model point leader Leslie Essary took advantage of a restart to get around leader Roger Wilson and held off a late charge by Ken Essary in grabbing the Late Model feature win Friday night before a packed house as the Speedway also held a special Relay For Life Cancer Society fundraiser with over $3,000 going towards the Lebanon Chapter.

After a couple of restarts in the LateModel feature,Roger Wilson grabbed the early lead in the 25 lap event as Jim Fulp,Jeremy Kelley amd Mike Hailman were giving chase during the early part of the feature.With Wilson setting a quick pace,current series point leader Leslie Essary began his charge to the front picking-off positions lap after lap until the caution waved on lap 11.On the restart,Leslie Swung to the top side and overtook Wilson for the lead as Ken Essary was starting to make his charge to the front also.With action 3 wide back in the pack,Fulp's drive to the front ended early as he slowed-up with problems and took his car to the pits.Leslie had the top groove working strong in turn3-4 and dialed his car low in turns 1-2.Rookie of the year contender Chad Smith was making a late race charge and came from mid-pack to challange for a top 3 finish along with veteran Rick Lebow.On lap 20,Dirt Hall-of Famer Ken Essary showed everyone how he got the nickname the "Flying Farmer" as he dialed to the low groove and started to run Leslie down as lapped traffic was in front of the leaders.Behind the lead duo,Smith,Lebow,early leader Wilson and Kelley were all battling for positions.On lap 22,Ken pulled to within 3 cars of leader Leslie,but Leslie found that high grrove even stronger in turn 4 and pulled away to grab his 7th feature win of the season followed by Ken essary,Chad Smith,Rick Lebow, and Roger wilson at the stripe as 18 of the 22 starters finished on the lead lap.

In Modified action,dending champion Jamie Ragland tok advantage of his front row outside starting spot to grab the early lead with Brian Schutt in tow.On lap 1,Ken Dickinson's car came to a halt in turn 1 and his night was over.On the restart,Ragland pulled ahead as points runner-up Eric Hudson began making his charge to the front as a 3 wide battle was going on for 4th between Sean Williams,point leader tony Jackson Jr,JD Hubert and veteran Wayne Graybeal.Up front Ragland was setting a fast pace as Hudson closed-up quickly on lap 12.Schutt was a solid 3rd place with 4 cars battling for 4th.Up front Hudson got to within 1 car of Ragland as the duo went through lapped traffic,but Ragland was able to pull out in the last couple of laps in claiming the win followed closely by Hudson,Schutt, point leader Tony Jackson Jr and Wayne Graybeal at the stripe.

The FactoryStock featuer provided the crowd with a 24 full car field as DJ DeGraffenreid brought the field down to grab the early control withVeteran Stan Booth close behind followed by Derrick Peterson,Troy White and Lake Ozark point leader Dale Berry.

On lap 5,Booth moved to the outside of DeGraffenreid to take control as Chuck Pederson was moving through the field fron his 11th starting spot.On lap 8,point leader James ellis was out with problems and 2 laps later leader Booth's motor went sky high ending his night.On the restart,Peterson was settin a quick pace as veteran Bobby Ratterree was coming through the field and moved into the top 3.With action tight and extra money up for grabs,Peterson making his 1st start on the Midway was looking strong until Ratterree made a smooth move on the inside and grabbed the lead on lap 17 to record the win followed by Peterson,Dale Berry,Steve James and early leader DeGraffenreid.

The SuperStocks again provided another great feature as veteran JC Newell powered to the front early around Clinton Betts to grab the early lead with Donnie Gennings close behind as point leader Ben Newell was following.These 3 drivers were close as several times positions were side by side.On lap 8 Gennings pulled to the low side of the leader JC Newell and withstod a last lap surge from Newell in grabbing the feature win followed by JC Newell,Ben Newell,Travis hill and Betts at the stripe.

The Winged SprintCar Feature had defending champion Eric Todd jump for his front row starting spot to take the ealry control with Kyle Bellm close behind as all eyes were on point leader Clint Todd who started 11th.An early caution on lap 3 bunched everyone together and on the restart,Joe Todd made his pressence known as Clint Todd was charging hard as Rusty Quick was making some moves after restarting at the rear of the field.On lap 14,Clint shot to the inside and then went upstairs in overtaking leader Eric Todd in grabbing the win followed by Eric Todd,Joe Todd,Kyle Bellm and Quick in the top 5.

Current point leader Shawn Winfrey grabbed control early and never looked back in taking the Bomber feature win with Billy Waters,Joe Francis,Mike Piercey and Chad Cromer following in the top 5.

Next week racing action at the Midway will feature Kid's Night as kids 10 and under wil get the chance to compete in Bike Races at intermission along with Racing in the Modifieds,Superstocks,Winged Sprints,FactoryStocks and Bombers.There will be No Fastrk LateModel Racing Next Friday Night.

Gates open at 5 with hotlaps at 7 and Racing at 8PM Sharp.

Results
Show-Me Racin Series LateModels
1st-Ht-1)Ken Essary 2)Mike Hailmann 3)Jeremy Kelley 4)Chris Hawkins 5)Jordan Holloway 6)Ron Myers 7)Jason Otto 8)Kathy Pierson
2nd Ht-1)Leslie Essary 2)Roger Wilson 3)Tony Jackson Jr 4)Kevin Henson 5)Chad Smith 6)Tyler Milner 7)Wesley Briggs 8)Frank Tindle
3rd Ht-1)Jim Fulp 2)Jarrod Hilton 3)Chad Pyle 4)Rick Lebow 5)Jimmy Greenway 6)Scott Fry 7)Ron Johnson 8)Jeremy Milner
B Ft-1)Top 4 To A1)Ron Myers2)Wesley Briggs 3)Jason Otto 4)Kathy Pierson 5)Ron Johnson 6)Scott Fry 7)Frank Tindle 8)Frank Milner
A Ft-1)L.Essary 2)K.Essary 3)C.Smith 4)Lebow 5)Wilson 6)Kelley 7)Hawkins 8)Hailmann 9)Jackson Jr 10)Hilton 11)Greenway 12)Henson 13)T.Milner 14)Holloway 15)Myers 16)Pyle 17)Pierson 18)Otto 19)Fry 20)Briggs 21)Tindle 22)Fulp

Modifieds
1st Ht-Brian Schutt 2)Eric Hudson 3)JD Hubert 4)Sean Williams 5)Tony Jackson Jr 6)Ken Dickinson 7)Jack Jones 8)Paul Snyder
2nd Ht-1)Jamie Ragland 2)Wayne Graybeal 3)Jimmy Willis 4)Donnie Fellers 5)Darren Fullerton 6)Don Luna 7)Chris Johnson DNS-Brian Millsap
A Ft-1)Ragland 2)Hudson 3)Schutt 4)Jackson Jr 5)Graybeal 6)Williams 7)Hubert 8)Jones 9)Willis 10)Fellers 11)Fullerton 12)Snyder 13)Luna 14)Johnson 15)Millsap 16)Dickinson

FactoryStocks
1st Ht-Top 6 To A-1)Steve James 2)Bobby Ratterree 3)DJ Degraffenreid 4)Donnie Miller 5)Doug Rich 6)Dylan Keeper 7)Rich Allen 8)Justin Sparks 9)Chris Ratterree
2nd Ht-1)Dale Berry 2)Richard Turner 3)Derrick Peterson 4)James Ellis 5)Joe Davenport 6)Sundance Keeper 7)Kevin LaChance 8)Jeff Albright Jr 9)Greg Breedlove
3rd Ht-1)Troy White 2)Chuck Pederson 3)Stan Booth 4)Ed Wilson 5)Glen Dismang 6)Jay Flinn 7)Aaron Gustin 8)Joe Sanford 9)Mike Murzynski
B Ft-Top 6 To A-1)Allen 2)Gustin 3)LaChance 4)C.Ratterree 5)Albright Jr. 6)Sparks 7)Murzynski 8)Sanford 9)Breedlove
A Ft-1)B.Ratterree 2)Peterson 3)Berry 4)James 5)DeGraffenreid 6)White 7)Rich 8)Miller 9)C.Ratterree 10)Turner 11)Keeper 12)S.Keeper 13)Flinn 14)Dismang 15)Allen 16)Gustin 17)Wilson 18)Pederson 19)Booth 20)Ellis 21)Sparks 22)Albright Jr 23)Davenport 24)LaChance

SuperStocks
1st Ht-1)JC Newell 2)Clinton Betts 3)Rick Hill 4)Travis Hill 5)Bill Scharr 6)Jeremy Gardner 7)Bennie Joiner
2nd Ht-1)Donnie Gennings 2)Jeff Kingsley 3)Ben Newell 4)Robbie Simmons 5)Steve Reese 6)Bill Joiner
A Ft-1)Gennings 2)JC Newell 3)B.Newell 4)T.Hill 5)Betts 6)R.Hill 7) Bill Joiner 8)Simmons 9)Scharr 10)Kingsley 11)Gardner DNS-Bennie Joiner,Steve Reese

WingedSprints
1st Ht-1)Steve Lawrence 2)Kyle Bellm 3)Rusty Quick 4)Matt Tatro 5)Erik Enneking 6)Jeremy Hazel 7)Scott Wedelstadt 8)Keith Breedlove
2nd Ht-1)Joe Todd 2)Eric Todd 3)Clint Todd 4)Rob Pardun 5)Mike Williams 6)Mike Larson 7)Bob Lemon 8)John Rowland
A Ft-1)C.Todd 2)E.Todd 3)J.Todd 4)Bellm 5)Quick 6)Lawrence 7)Wedelstadt 8)Hazel 9)Enneking 10)Pardun 11)Larson 12)Lemon 13)Williams 14)Breedlove 15)Tatro DNS-Rowland

Bombers
1st Ht-1)Mike Piercy 2)Jennifer Crouch 3)Pat Lubbock 4)Chad Cromer 5)Larry Franklin 6)Cody Crabtree 7)Brandon Waters
2nd Ht-1)Joe Francis 2)Billy Waters 3)Missy Shaw 4)Brian Goff 5)Wayne Coffman 6)Nick Arthur 7)Jerry Goring
3rd Ht-1)Shawn Winfrey 2)Keith Cheever 3)Lee Sing 4)Justin Dame 5)Tom Monnahan 6)Billy Smith 7)Jack Hamer
A Ft-1)Winfrey 2)Billy Waters 3)Francis 4)Piercy 5)Cromer 6)Crouch 7)Goff 8)Shaw 9)Franklin 10)Jack Hamer 11)Coffman 12)Goring 13)Sing 14)Lubbock 15)Crabtree 16)Arthur 17)Monnahan 18)Smith 19)Cheever 20)Dame DNS-Brandon Waters