MARSHALLTOWN, Iowa – A blown engine ended Darin Duffy’s drive for his career-first USMTS Modified win Tuesday night as the Hunt for the USMTS Casey’s General Stores National Championship rolled into the Marshalltown Speedway for the 2nd Annual Dirt Madness event.
Three laps later, Mother Nature ended the night for everybody and gave Jon Tesch his first victory of the season.
Duffy drew the pole for the WIX Filters “A” Main and used the low side of the quarter-mile dirt oval to set the pace early on while Tesch gave chase around the high side of the racetrack.
A caution on lap 9 wiped out Duffy’s advantage, but he jumped out to a four-car-length lead once again after the restart while Tesch had his hands full with points leader Jason Hughes and Rodney Sanders.
On lap 17, the yellow flag waved again – this time for Duffy as his motor expired just three laps shy of the halfway point in the scheduled 40-lapper.
Back under green, it was a repeat of last year’s Marshalltown event with Tesch fending off Hughes for the top spot.
Action was cut short again on lap 20 when Mike Spaulding’s mount rolled over in turn 1, bringing out the red flag. Spaulding was unhurt in the crash, but before track workers could finish cleaning up the mess, the rain began to fall as forecasted and officials were forced to pull the plug and call the race complete.
The early ending gave Tesch his first win of the 2010 campaign and second in a row at Marshalltown for the “Wizard of Watertown” – not to mention a nice $3,000 prize at the pay window.
Hughes and Sanders held on for second and third while Tommy Myer climbed from 12th on the starting grid to fourth at the end of 20 circuits. Mark Elliott was fifth, Tommy Weder Jr. grabbed the sixth spot, Corey Dripps was seventh, Ryan Gustin recorded an eighth-place finish in front of his hometown fans, Jason Krohn nabbed ninth and Dereck Ramirez rounded out the top-10.
Hughes’ runner-up finish and tenth top-5 finish in eleven starts during ‘The Hunt’ solidified his spot at the top of the championship standings where he now leads Gustin 46 points. VanderBeek remains third and 60 markers behind Hughes, followed by Myer (-74), Krohn (-150), Kelly Shryock (-167), Ramirez (-229), Sanders (-242), Tim Donlinger (-268) and Dripps (-324).
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