TQ Midget race report

[sprinter15jr]

Mike Belusar of Punta Gorda won the FMARA Feature event at Punta Gorda Speedway Saturday night June 18th but not before a hard fought battle from Brooksville driver Jamie Barnum. Barnum started on the pole in his Dad’s #7 and sprinted to a straight away lead by lap three before the first of four caution flags caused from a spin by #5 David Patterson out of Port Charlotte. On the restart Barnum took off from the field before another caution for a broken oil line on the #23 of Steven Maier from Port St Lucie bunched the field again. Barnum continued to lead on the next restart but now could feel the pressure from Belusar driving the #30 McKinney Special. Belusar had worked his way through the slower cars from his seventh starting spot and had moved into second when the third caution came out for a flip from Patterson coming out of turn two. Patterson and his car would be OK but were finished for the night. Another restart only this time the pressure on Barnum was too much as Belusar gained the lead on an inside pass going into turn one on lap seventeen. The biggest caution of the night came out when a torsion arm broke on veteran driver Jack Duffy’s car #1 on lap twenty-two and sent him flipping into the turn three catch fence. The “Ageless Wonder” out of Sarasota walked back to the pits but his car received some heavy damage. The restart saw a dash to the finish with Belusar beating Barnum to the line. Hard Charging Chris Gimmler in the #51 out of Palm Beach Gardens applied some late race pressure on the front two cars and came away with third. Geoff Styner in the #2 from Cape Coral finished fourth and the #14 of John Ciolino also from Cape Coral rounded out the top five. Barnum and Belusar won the two heat races. After a few weeks off, the FMARA will return to action on July 16th at Punta Gorda Speedway.

1) Mike Belusar
2) Jamie Barnum
3) Chris Gimmler
4) Geoff Styner
5) John Ciolino
6) Jack Duffy-DNF
7) David Patterson-DNF
8) Steven Maier-DNF
9) Jay Stutz-DNS