Al Purkey
Jetmore, Kansas – April 30, 2011 – Former two time series champion Al Purkey of Coffeyville, Kansas kicked off the 2011 campaign for the National Championship Racing Association of Park City, Kansas presented by Smiley’s Racing Products late model DIRTcar in huge fashion as he held off late race charges from Jessie Stovall to claim the $10,000 paycheck and the second annual Sunflower State Showdown Saturday night at the Great American Dirt Track in Jetmore, Kansas.
Forty-seven drivers from eight different states were on hand for this huge one night event which was a combined series effort with the CLMA DIRTcar, MARS DIRTcar and Lucas Oil MLRA late model series.
By virtue of obtaining the most passing points and heat race finishing points out of the five heat races that were completed earlier in the evening, Tony Jackson, Jr. of Lebanon, Missouri started on the pole for the 50 lap feature finale with Woodward, Oklahoma’s Tommy Weder, Jr. on the outside.
Jackson, Jr. took the lead at the wave of the green flag with Weder, Jr., former two-time series champion Kyle Berck of Marquette, Nebraska and fourth starting Purkey giving chase.
A couple laps into the race the first and only caution flag fell for a spin by Leroy Johnson.
Jackson pulled away on the restart with Weder, Jr., Purkey, and Berck making it a three car battle for the runner up position. Purkey would overtake Weder, Jr. for the runner up position around lap twelve and set his sights on the leader.
Heavy lapped traffic approached the front runners and on lap twelve, Purkey and Jackson, Jr. split a lapped car with Purkey up top and would take the lead.
Behind the front runners, eleventh starting Jesse Stovall began working his way up to the front and around the midway point had worked himself into the third position. Around lap thirty Stovall got around Jackson, Jr. and set his sights on the leader Purkey, who had opened up a comfortable twelve car length lead.
With ten laps to go Stovall used the high line to cut Purkey’s lead to just three car length and would pull even with the late model veteran one lap later. But that would be as close as Stovall would get as Purkey held on the final laps to take the $10,000 victory.
Berck held on for the third position with five-time and defending series champion Kelly Boen of Henderson, Colorado coming from his 20th starting position to take fourth. Defending race champion John Anderson of Omaha, Nebraska rounded out the top five.
The five, ten lap heat races for the 47 car field were won by Purkey, Weder, Jr., Jack Sullivan, Jackson, Jr. and Berck while the two, sixteen lap “B” features were won by R.C. Whitwell and Brad Looney.
The next event for the NCRA of Park City, Kansas presented by Smiley’s Racing Products DIRTcar late model series will be this coming Friday at “The Hummer,” Humboldt Speedway in Humboldt, Kansas before making their first appearance of the season at the home of the series, 81 Speedway in Park City on Saturday night.
The National Championship Racing Association would like to thank the following for their partnership with the late model division for the 2011 race season:
Official Sponsors: Park City, Kansas, Smiley’s Racing Products, Hoosier Racing Tires, Sunoco Race Fuels, DIRTcar.
1st Heat: 1) Al Purkey 2) Jon Mitchell 3) Terry Phillips 4) Corey Zeitner 5) Billy Koons Jr. 6) Joe Gorby 7) Terry Boushee 8) Craig Baukama 9) Brad Wagoner 10) Steve Lewis
2nd Heat: 1) Tommy Weder Jr. 2) Brandon McCormick 3) R.C. Whitwell 4) Jesse Stovall 5) Gary Christian 6) Shawn Harker 7) Al Humphrey 8) David Turner 9) Cliff Morrow 10) Alan Vaughn
3rd Heat: 1) Jack Sullivan 2) John Anderson 3) Brad Looney 4) Anthony Madrid 5) Kelly Boen 6) Delbert Smith 7) Jeremy Payne 8) Scott Lewis 9) Steve Kempt
4th Heat: 1) Tony Jackson, Jr. 2) Dean Moore 3) Joe Kosiski 4) Bill Koons 5) John Kuchar 6) Leroy Johnson 7) Wylan Petrie 8) Larry Jackson 9) Dan Sheppard
5th Heat: 1) Kyle Berck 2) Wendall Wallace 3) Andrew Kosiski 4) Eric Turner 5) Ron Hegger 6) Dylan Schmer, 7) Kyle Hill 8) Jered Maas 9) Vince Wagner
1st B Feature: 1) R.C. Whitwell 2) Anthony Madrid 3) Kelly Boen 4) Al Humphrey 5) David Turner 6) Delbert Smith 7) Shawn Harker 8) John Kuchar 9) Steve Lewis 10) Cliff Morrow 11) Wylan Petrie 12) Vince Wagner 13) Dan Shappard 14) Joe Kosiski 15) Dylan Schmer 16) Larry Jackson
2nd B Feature: 1) Brad Looney 2) Jeremy Payne 3) Alan Vaughn 4) Gary Christian 5) Corey Zeitner 6) Brad Wagoner 7) Terry Boushee 8) Craig Baukama 9) Ron Hegger 10) Leroy Johnson 11) Jered Maas 12) Billy Koons, Jr. 13) Scott Lewis 14) Kyle Hill 15) Joe Gorby 16) Steve Kempt
A Feature: 1) 33 Al Purkey 2) 00 Jesse Stovall 3) 14 Kyle Berck 4) 33 Kelly Boen 5) 2 John Anderson 6) 56 Tony Jackson Jr. 7) 02 Tommy Weder, Jr. 8) 1 Jack Sullivan 9) 75 Terry Phillips 10) 88 Wendell Wallace 11) 96t R.C. Whitwell 12) 42 Brandon McCormick 13) 14L Brad Looney 14) 33m Jon Mitchell 15) 24 Bill Leighton 16) 58x Gary Christian 17) 74 Jeremy Payne 18) 26jr Cory Zeitner 19) 15t David Turner 20) 05 Anthony Madrid 21) 14M Dean Moore 22) 22 Alan Vaughn 23) 29 Bill Koons 24) 99t Eric Turner 25) 6h Al Humprey 26) 19 Steve Lewis 27) 28 Leroy Johnson
