By Steve Williams
On his weekend off Nick Wean went to the beach and found something. No the Phillipsburg, NJ resident didn’t head to Asbury Park to listen to “The Boss’, he went to Pontoon Beach, Illinois home of Tri-City Speedway and the Gold Crown Midget Nationals. He didn’t find any seashells. What he found was a setup that gave him a dominating victory at Grandview Speedway in the Thunder on the Hill, Halloween Party 5-25’s.
Rick Wean, Nick’s dad / crew chief said, “That place was just like here [Grandview]so I set the car up the same way” The same way worked as “Slick Nick” drove his ARDC Wingless Midget to almost a straight away win.
After a second complete restart was needed Alex Bright charged into the lead from his outside pole starting position after battling down the backstretch three wide with Steve Bull and Dusty Heistand. Bright was able to get into the third turn first before Bull and Heistand got together leaving Heistand sitting backward in the turn.
On the restart, Bright continued to lead but a battle behind him was heating up as the high point men who started in the rear were making their moves to the front. On the fourth lap, Steve Buckwalter moved into fourth while Wean slipped into fifth by riding up on the cushion.
Heading into turn three on the fifth lap, Buckwalter tried to duck low but a malfunctioning throttle spring caused the 0 to take a wild series of end over end flips. The crowd came to its feet and roared as Buckwalter, almost immediately, popped out of the cockpit and waved to the crowd that he was alright.
When the field restarted, second place runner, Steve Drevicki stopped on the backstretch to check with a tech official. Buckwalter’s flipping car had gotten into the rear of Drevicki’s racer setting up a vibration. With no visible damage Drevicki restarted on the back of the field and continued despite what was determined later as a badly bent rear axle.
With Drevicki dropping to the rear, Brett Arndt was moved to second with Wean and Ryan Smith now on his rear nerf bar. At the drop of the green flag, Wean immediately went to the cushion but with little success over the next few laps as Arndt was able to ward off the attack.
On lap eight, Wean got a bite off the cushion and got by Arndt for second. One lap later the same cushion gave Wean the lead as he got by Bright for the lead with a slick pass on the high side coming off turn two. “I went up top and at first we were going nowhere, then it came in and we took off” said Wean later.
Wean immediately started to open up a lead that at some points during the race was by the length of a straight. The battle on the track for second between Bright, Arndt and Smith was soon joined by Andrew Hannula, who like Wean was riding the cushion.
On the 10th lap Bright drifted high which allowed both Arndt and Smith to get past him. Four laps later Smith got under Arndt for second but was only able to draw in on the rear of Wean in lapped traffic.
Wean took the checkered flag 1.8 seconds ahead of Smith. Third place was Arndt as Hannula nipped Bright at the line for fourth.
Sixth through tenth spots went to Mike Miller, Drew Heistand, Jason Rice, Steve Drevicki and Eric Heydenreich.
GRANDVIEW NOTES: Nick Wean’s grandfather Dick was on hand Saturday night. After seeing many Micro race wins the elder Wean was on hand to witness Nick’s first ARDC Midget win. Other ARDCer’s besides Nick Wean who competed at the Gold Crown Midget Nationals were, Steve Buckwalter with a sixth in the A-Main, Alex Bright a 10th, Ryan Smith a 16th. Trevor Kobylarz had a 11th place finish in the B Main while Tim Buckwalter finished 13th in the B. After bringing out the initial yellow of the evening, Andrew Hannula and Jason Rice recovered nicely to finish fourth and eighth respectively. Hannula said his driving technique came from watching Sammy Swindell at the Chili Bowl. The bent rear in Steve Drevicki’s car was from his car owner, Greg Fitzpatrick’s Midget. It was installed when a pre race check of his showed a leak. After the season ending race at Susquehanna Speedway Park, Steve Buckwalter will head to Australia to race. Going into the final race of the season at Susquehanna, unofficially only Drew Heistand and Nick Wean have a mathematical chance to win the championship. Heistand has 2077 with Wean 97 points behind with 1980. The maximum points awarded for a race are 25 show points, 15 points for a heat race win and 100 points for a feature win for a total of 140 points. For the official point standings please visit www.ardcmidgets.com
GRANDVIEW SPEEDWAY October 15, 2011 ARDC Midgets (23 Entries) 1) 78 Nick Wean, 2) 33 Ryan Smith, 3) 46 Brett Arndt, 4) 89 Andrew Hannula, 5) 77 Alex Bright, 6) 41 Mike Miller, 7) 12 Drew Heistand, 8) 57 Jason Rice, 9) 19 Steve Drevicki, 10) 11 Eric Heydenreich, 11) 2 Shawn Jackson, 12) 3 Joe Butera, 13) 16 Dave Shirk, DNF 14) 01 Steve Bull, 15) 52 Tim Buckwalter, 16) 83 Bruce Buckwalter Jr., 17) 0 Steve Buckwalter, 18) 53 Randy Reid, 19) 20 Carey Becker, 20) 6 Dusty Heistand, 21) 51 PJ Gargiulo, 22) 07 Jimmy Glenn, 23) 17 Ryan Watt