By: Ashley McCubbin/KDR Motorsports PR – After a pair of second place feature finishes over the course of the weekend, Kevin Cornelius would finish second overall in the Don Biederman Memorial.
On Saturday, he started the night off well, posting the second quickest time in time trials at 13.540 seconds, four tenths off of Dwayne Baker’s quick time of 13.503.
As a result of his time trialing effort, he would start on pole for his heat, where he would finish second behind Brandon Watson.
When it came feature time, the second-place time trial effort would put him on the outside of the front row for the green flag for the 50 lap feature.
When the green was dropped, Dwayne Baker would grab the lead ahead of Cornelius. Cornelius would run second all the way till the first caution at lap 17 for Shane Maginnis and John Owen getting together.
There’d be three other cautions that would follow over the course of the next 20 laps and each time, Cornelius was able to hold the second spot behind Baker, in front of Brandon Watson. Watson would get underneath of Cornelius for second at lap 42, though Watson then got loose causing him to slip back in line.
With five laps to go, there’d be a pair of back-to-back cautions. On the second of the two restarts, Watson did get underneath of Cornelius for second, while Gresel would get to the outside of Cornelius. Down the backstretch, contact would be made within the tight battle, causing Gresel to bounce of the wall. Heading down into turn threes and four, Cornelius was able to pull ahead of Watson and Gresel to keep the second spot.
Cornelius would hold on to second to score his best career OSCAAR feature finish and third top 10 in three features to that point (seventh at Sunset in May, fifth at Barrie).
“It is awesome,” Cornelius said of the finish on Saturday night. “I felt the last time that we were here we left something on the table so I really wanted to get back out here. I didn’t know that we were three-wide there. This is awesome.”
On whether he had anything for Baker, Cornelius said, “There was just nothing left in the tires. We are trying a different tire strategy than everybody else and I’m not sure it’s working. We were out of tires at about lap 2 so I was just trying to keep it out of the wall, keep my momentum up and keep the guys behind me.“
As a result of finishing second in Saturday’s feature, Cornelius would start on the pole for his heat on Sunday. He would go on to win the heat to pick up his second heat win of the season following a heat win earlier this month at Barrie Speedway.
He would once again start outside pole in the feature and be alongside Baker for the lead on lap one, though Baker would grab the lead off of turn four. Cornelius would run in the second position all the way to the first caution on lap 29 after Kyle Passer would get sideways off of turn four, making contact with the side of Glenn Watson, causing Glenn Watson to hit the outside wall.
On the restart, Cornelius would get by Baker to take the lead, before the caution flew a lap later for Brad Corcoran spinning. Cornelius would clear Brandon Watson on the restart to keep the lead and held it all the way till a caution with 10 laps to go for J.R. Fitzpatrick spinning.
On the restart, Brandon Watson would grab the lead from Cornelius as Cornelius would bounce the No. 17 Super Late Model off of the backstretch wall. The caution flag would fly once again three laps later as John Owen would run into problems.
On the restart, Brandon Watson wouldn’t go, giving Cornelius the jump. Cornelius would then slow up, causing Baker to get into the back of him, followed by everybody getting into each other behind them. The result would be Cornelius catching the front stretch wall with the left front corner while Baker would get spun around. Due to it being a false restart with Watson not going, they would give everyone their spots back for the restart.
The second attempt at a restart would be a go as Watson would grab the lead while Cornelius and Shane Maginnis battled side-by-side for second. Cornelius would clear Maginnis with six laps to go.
Cornelius was unable to get by Brandon Watson in the closing laps as he would finish second once again for his third top five and fourth top 10 of the season thus far.
Cornelius would make mention that the contact with the backstretch wall on the restart would cause the toe be knocked out.
“I’m not sure what happened there,” he added. “We had the restart there and the car just wouldn’t turn and Brandon got by us there. I had no choice. I had to take the outside. I couldn’t get the run off of the bottom that late in the race. I don’t think I made the wrong call, but man, should have won that one.”
Big kudos were given to Mike McColl for the changes made between Saturday night’s feature and Sunday night.
“That guy is a magician,” Cornelius said. “He and his guys were here again and made it a ton better. I mean, the 48 was just walking away from us last night and we stayed with him tonight so the changes they made were great. I can’t thank those guys enough. They put an awesome chassis underneath me. It’s up to me now to wheel it.”
The Don Biederman Memorial Champion was to be given to the driver that had the best average finish across the two days. Cornelius tied with Watson and Baker as each of them had an average finish of second. OSCAAR officials would use the finishing order from Saturday’s feature to determine who would get the crown. As a result, Dwayne Baker was crowned Don Biederman Memorial Champion with Cornelius second and Watson third.
Photos are available on the KDR Motorsports website at . Keep up with KDR Motorsports by liking the facebook page – http://www.facebook.com/kdrmotorsports17 – and following KDR Motorsports on twitter – @KDR_Motorsports.
Thanks to Halton Crushed Stone, Lee Sand and Gravel, Hanson Concrete, Sandbox Tech Child Care, Alliston Transmission, Ed’s Automotive, Triple Concrete and MacMaster Buick GMC for their support.
Also, thanks to Mike McColl, Jeremy and Al from McColl Racing Enterprises for all of their help this weekend and support.
Lastly, thanks to the fans that came out to the track both days for two fun filled days of racing, as well as the on-track autograph session. We appreciate your support.
Following Saturday’s feature finish, Cornelius spoke with OSCAAR TV’s Clayton Johns about how the night went. The video is available on OSCAAR’s youtube page, along with race videos that you can watch if you missed this weekend’s action (or want to relieve it). Check it out at http://www.youtube.com/user/OSCAARRacing.
The next race for the OSCAAR Super Late Models is at Sauble Speedway on July 13th.
“Racing with the best of the best in Baker and Watson here, and I’m really excited to get back to Sauble,” Cornelius said. “It’s been a long time since I raced there. I got my start there.”
We hope to see everybody at Sauble in two weeks. :)
