Southern Ontario Sprints: Naida takes feature win at South Buxton

By Tommy Goudge and Greg Calnan (August 22, 2009) - The Southern Ontario Sprints tour made a second visit to South Buxton Raceway in 2009 a memorable one on Saturday night. Dain Naida jumped out to an early lead in the 20 lap feature and fought off several charges from Jamie Collard to notch his first SOS win, and second sprint car win of the season. The event ran non-stop green to checkered with Collard, Jim Porter, Adam West and Warren Mahoney rounding out the top five.

The feature began with Warren Mahoney and Dain yNaida on the front row, and it was Naida taking the early lead while Mahoney dropped to second.  Naida was fast on the tacky track surface, while behind him a torrid battle was shaping up for other spots in the top ten.  Mahoney, a winner at South Buxton last season, was not about to give up and applied the pressure as the race quickly marched on.

Mahoney, however, would not be able to hold the runner-up spot as Jamie Collard, Jim Porter, and Adam West were all looking for the feature win as well.  Collard separated himself from the other competitors as the race approached the halfway point, and went to work on Naida, while lapped traffic also began to play a role.  Collard appeared ready to pounce on the leader at any second, but one small slip-up by Collard was all Naida needed to stay out front for the remainder of the event and claim the feature win.

Collard settled for second, a career best finish for the up and coming driver from Burford.  Jim Porter and Adam West settled the battle for third with Porter taking the position, while West and Mahoney rounded out the top five.  Dash race winner Louie Carufel moved up three spots in the feature to claim sixth, while Justin Martin took seventh after starting thirteenth.  John Riegling, Brad Knab, and Bob Crawford finished out the top ten.

Heat race victories went to Dain Naida and John Riegling, while Louie Carufel claimed the South Buxton Raceway Dash for Cash.

NOTES:
- Dain Naida, Louie Carufel, Jim Porter, and Brad Knab made their first SOS starts of 2009 on Saturday night, while Chris Durand also made his first ever SOS appearance.  Durand’s evening came to a premature end when the #67’s driveshaft snapped in hot laps.  John Watson made a second appearance with the tour, this time behind the wheel of the Jason Martin #01m, but an incident in hot laps ended his night as well.

- Naida’s father John was among those celebrating in victory lane on Saturday night.  John’s long and distinguished sprint car career saw eight visits to South Buxton, including feature wins in 1980, and 1996.  His victory at South Buxton on August 3, 1996 marked the fifth event ever held in club history.  With Dain’s feature win on Saturday night, the Naidas became the third father/son combination to claim SOS feature wins, after Dick and Warren Mahoney, and Rick and Kyle Wilson.

- Local hero John Riegling returned to sprint car competition on Saturday night for the first time since a hard wreck on June 5th at Ohsweken Speedway.  Riegling won his heat race in convincing fashion, but struggled in the feature, taking the eighth position.  Riegling’s return continued his streak of consecutive SOS appearances at South Buxton, dating back to the very first SOS event in 1996.

- The battle for the SOS championship took yet another twist on Saturday night when Justin Martin hit an infield tire barrier in turn four while on his way to a possible heat race victory.  The contact was hard enough to break parts in the point leader’s front end and he did not finish the heat race, while second place point man Adam West claimed third.  Martin was able to drive through the pack to finish seventh in the feature, but West finished fourth and took over the points lead in the process.  Unofficially, the gap stands at just four markers as the tour heads to Brighton in two weeks for the final events of the season.  Visit www.BrightonSpeedway.com  and www.SouthernOntarioSprints.com  for more information on the season ending Labour Day Classic weekend.