From Bob Buffenbarger,T-Mez in the McGhee 17 mudclodBob photo
Kokomo, IN — (October 21, 2012) — Kokomo Speedway wrapped up another great season with Thomas Meseraull winning the “Kokomo Klash” for sprint cars as Tracy Hines took the midget victory on a beautiful fall evening.
After rain delayed Fridays “Klash”, the Sunday make-up date saw much improved weather with sunny skies and temperatures around 60. The line to enter the pits formed around 1 p.m. and snaked around through the parking lot two and three wide as the rigs rolled in.
A field of 35 sprint cars and 21 midgets eventually were ready to tackle the track to close the season. It was like musical chairs as many drivers were in different cars for a wide variety of season ending reasons.
Four heats for sprint cars saw Kurt Gross captured the first over Conner Donelson. Heat two proved to be the best of the batch with Thomas Meseraull(in the McGhee 17) taking the win over Scotty Weir (in the Hazen 57) and Kevin Thomas Jr.(in the 21) in a great battle. Heat three laurels went to Tracy Hines over Wes McIntyre. The final prelim went to Jon Stanbrough (in the Fox 53) over the always spectacular Coleman Gulick.
Two midget heat races were run for the nice field of 21 on hand. Tracy Hines took the win over Ross Rankine and Bobby East in the first heat. Thomas Meseraull grabbed the checkers over Jake Blackhurst and Shane Hollingsworth in the second heat race.
Two B mains for sprint cars found Brady Short (in the 11b) and Jamie Fredickson transfer to the feature in the first and Logan Jarrett and Blake Fitzpatrick move out of the second B.
The 25 lap sprint car feature was up first with Jon Stanbrough and Thomas Meseraull on the front row. Meseraull led the first circuit. Lap two saw the 14 of Coleman Gulick with a huge bicycle between turns 3&4, which led into a very nasty endo into the turn 4 wall. Kevin Thomas also biked and ended up in the wall but didn’t turn over. Luckily, both drivers were ok.
At the lap five mark, it was T-Mez, Stanbrough, Scotty Weir, Tracy Hines, Wes McIntryre and Billy Puterbaugh Jr.. The order remained the same until the 12 lap when Wes McIntrye spun the Baldwin 5 in turn two.
On the re-start 17th starting Dave Darland (in the Fox 56) had moved into the 5th spot. Scotty Weir dropped out on the 17th lap. Jon Stanbrough closed in on Meseraull a bit but T-Mez was strong and went on to win over Stanbrough, Hines, Darland, Puterbaugh, Brady Short, Chris Gurley, WesMac, Robbins, Conner Donelson and Kurt Gross.
Next was the 25 lap feature this time with Tracy Hines starting on the pole with T-Mez outside front row. Meseraull led the first lap but Hines quickly took command and Meseraull dropped out on lap four. Hines was dominate throughout but East did close up and caught him but Hines would have no part of it and motored away. Racing behind Hines was very good with East, 7th starting Shane Hollingsworth, Jake Blackhurst and Parker Price Miller from 8th all dicing.
Hines went on to take the win over Hollingsworth, East, Blackhurst, Miller, Scotty Weir, Ross Rankine, Taylor Ferns, Troy DeCaire and Dalton Armstrong.
Also on hand was a nice field of 38 600’s and 19 UMRA TQ’s. Results for those can be found elsewhere.
Thanks to Kokomo for another fine season.