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[/media-credit]Coming into the Wahta Springs 300 at Barrie Speedway this past weekend, D.J. Kennington led the point standings by 33 points over Andrew Ranger. However, following a fuel pump problem on lap 153, Kennington would score a 21st first place finish and now only leads Ranger by 14 points.
“We knew even with a good lead that this sort of thing sometimes happens,” Kennington says in the team race report. “We’re not hanging out heads though; we’ll be back next week ready to go at Riverside. I feel bad we couldn’t have a better finish for SuperClean with them on the car this weekend.”
The day had started off well for Kennington as he qualified sixth and made his way into the top five with a pass on Ron Beauchamp Jr. on lap 71 of 300. He’d continue running in the top five all the way till he made a pit stop on lap 134 with the rest of the leaders. The restart after that caution would come would come at lap 149, with Kennington suffering his problems four laps later.
Kennington would spend numerous laps on pit road, changing the fuel pump, before returning to the track.
“From there we just soldiered on as best we could,” The St. Thomas, Native says. “The car was right back to running fast after we changed part change, unfortunately these things happen.”
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[/media-credit]While typically Kennington runs the gold and black Castrol Edge colors, he debuted a purple paint scheme for primary sponsor Super Clean.
“It was an idea that came up a few weeks ago,” Kennington says. “We’re happy to have SuperClean products as part of our program this year and for the Barrie race we had coupons and sample giveaways and then we had this idea to make an even bigger splash and we came up with this great look for the No. 17 SuperClean Dodge and it sure got a lot of attention from everyone.”
In the four previous ovals this season, Kennington had won them all. Following this past weekend’s finish, some have to question if its the curse of the purple. For this weekend’s race at Riverside International Speedway in Nova Scotia, Kennington will return to the gold and black colors.
Meanwhile, Ranger would come finish in the second spot after being involved in the late race scramble to the finish. He watched the battle for[media-credit id=4 align=”alignright” width=”266″]
[/media-credit] first three-wide ahead of him with two laps to go with Pete Shepherd III, J.R. Fitzpatrick and Steve Mathews. Then going into turn four on the last lap, he would make contact with Fitzpatrick’s back bumper, sending him around. Ranger would continue and finish the race in second.
Ranger had a solid day for the most part, running just outside the top five till the end, where he was able to make his way into the top five following Scott Steckly and Mark Dilley’s problems.
Fitzpatrick, who led a good size portion of the 300 laps, would finish the race in sixth following the spin and currently sits third in points, 18 points behind Kennington.
With the Canadian Tire Series using the same points system as NASCAR’s top three divisions, all it will take is one bad finish or two so-so finishes by Kennington and good solid runs by either Ranger or Fitzpatrick in the final two races to change the fate of who will be crowned the 2012 NASCAR Canadian Tire Series Champion.
Ranger has two championships, Kennington has one and Fitzpatrick is hunting for his first. Who will be the champion at the end of the year?
