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Eddy Dominates Meijer 300
Wins First ASA Event Since 1999
Mike Eddy put in an absolutely dominating performance en
route to winning
the Meijer 300 presented by Tony's Pizza, Tysons,
Stouffer's and Edy's Ice
Cream at Berlin Raceway in Marne, Mich.
Running a part-time schedule in the No. 5 Sizzlemarine.com
Chevrolet, Eddy took the lead on lap 85 of the 300-lap
event on the tough .438-mile track, and nearly ran away
from the entire field. By lap 144 Eddy had all but two
other cars a lap down, and had a lead of more than 10
seconds over Butch Miller at the time. Eddy's car was able
to run anywhere on the track, and he could move through
traffic as if his car was covered in butter.
Ultimately, Eddy would lap the entire field save Miller,
but the entire complexion of the race changed for a yellow
flag on lap 263 when Ed Brown spun on the backstretch. At
the time there were five cars on the lead lap as Mike
Garvey, Robbie Pyle and Kevin Cywinski had all raced their
lap back.
The five cars headed down pit road, each taking on right
side tires, but it was the leader Eddy who had an
extremely slow pit stop as they had trouble with the air
gun on the right front tire and came out in fifth. Garvey
was assessed a stop-and-go penalty for running over his
air hose so Eddy moved to fourth on the restart.
The seven-time ASA National Tour Champion was then forced
to race for the win in an event that he had so thoroughly
dominated through the middle laps, and ended up with a
.970 margin of victory over Pyle, the pole sitter.
It was Eddy's 58th ASA career win, but the first since the
1999 win at LaCrosse, Wis.
"The car was awesome tonight," Eddy said, an obvious fact
considering he led 209 laps. "That is the third time in
this car (for me) and that's a full week of hard work by
everybody involved to get us here."
"I never retired, I was just unemployed," Eddy said of his
two year absence from racing prior to getting back in the
seat at Lake Erie (Pa.) Speedway a couple of weeks ago.
"There was a lot of people calling me to do this, but I
don't do this for nothing."
Second place Pyle said, "Running behind Mike Eddy is a
task in itself. What a great racer. I had a lot of fun
racing him. We're pretty happy with second. The beginning
of the year started off slow and now just getting up there
and battling with them is a whole lot of fun." Pyle won
his second Jani-King pole of the season earlier in the day
in the No. 63 Citgo
Chevrolet, and was coming off last week's win at Mansfield
(Ohio) Motorsports Speedway.
Kevin Cywinski, in the No. 1 Country Joe Homes Chevrolet,
finished third on the evening.
"At about lap 130 we were all pouting in our Cheerios,"
Cywinski explained about being a lap down to Eddy before
the race had even reached halfway. "Luckily it ran long
enough for us to get back on the lead lap and get
ourselves a halfway decent finish."
The beginning of the race was especially competitive, with
quite a few lead changes. In total there were 11 lead
changes among four drivers. The caution flag flew 5 times
for 38 laps. There were 5 of the 32 starters on the lead
lap.
Unofficially, the top 10 finishers were Eddy, Pyle,
Cywinski, Butch Miller, Garvey, finishing on the lead lap.
One lap down was Tim Sauter, Wade Day, Bryan Reffner, Toby
Porter and Greg Stewart. The
Cool Shirt "Cool Move of the Race" award was given to Mike
Eddy for the way that he was able to move his car through
traffic. Eddy also picked up the BFGoodrich Tires Halfway
Leader award, and the VP Fuel "Hard Charger of the Race"
was Toby Porter for moving up 17 positions during the
race.
Earlier in the day Bobby Stremme won the Berlin 100, the
ASA Late Model Series event, the first of his career.
Stremme, the series point leader heading into the race,
was second when a lap 77 caution put him on the back
bumper of the No. 29 of Brian Campbell, the pole sitter.
Stremme got a great restart in his No. 53 Meijer Chevrolet
and the two cars raced side-by-side for the lead for three
laps before Stremme was able to get the inside line and
make the pass stick.
"I saw that he was running higher, and higher, and higher
and I was loose from the get go but I knew I could get off
the bottom better and it just looked like he kept on
pushing and pushing," Stremme explained. "I was trying to
follow him for the most part. I let him go at the
beginning because I wanted to see what kind of line he
would run. I am so glad to win here at Berlin the first
time ever seeing the track." |
