From John Rittenoure
Pocola, Ok — (June 15, 2013) — For the second straight night and the fourth consecutive race a new winner has emerged within the ranks of the Oil Capital Racing Series. Friday night Kacee Frazier won her first career OCRS sprint car main event at Monett Speedway. Saturday young Alex DeCamp stepped up at Tri-State Speedway to win his first OCRS feature.
DeCamp became the seventh winner in nine OCRS races held so far this season. And he could not have been any happier. The victory snapped a string of bad luck for the DeCamp team.
“I have been waiting on this for awhile,” DeCamp said afterwards while waiting for his car to pass tech inspection. “We had some bad luck at the beginning of the season getting caught up with everybody’s stuff and making some trouble of my own. May be we got the monkey off our back tonight.
“I want to thank my sponsors for making this happen, Tri-State Speedway and OCRS for letting us run these sprint cars weekly.”
Some of that bad luck reared its ugly head again this weekend, but DeCamp and his team worked through it just in time for Saturday’s 25-lap main event.
“We barely made the heat race,” DeCamp said. “We were fighting brake issues all night and did not have brakes last night (Friday at Monett), tonight in the hot laps and barely had them in the heat race. We had them for the A feature. We changed front brake and rotator then the master cylinder and had to bleed the brakes.”
DeCamp earned the pole thanks to his heat race passing points and feature point average and used it to his advantage driving out to an early lead.
“When we were making a lot of laps at the beginning without a caution I knew we had a large lead then we had cautions and that got everyone closer,” recalled DeCamp. “That makes it real nerve racking. Then when you have a caution with four left then three left you don’t know who is back there or if a tire is going down. I was ready to get that race over as soon as possible.”
Johnny Kent chased Morton for the first nine or ten laps before rookie Chance Morton took over the runner-up position. For the next ten laps it was DeCamp and Morton. But with five laps to go defending champion Jamie Passmore slipped by Morton and made a run at DeCamp.
DeCamp did not know it was Passmore lurking behind him.
“I thought it was Chance Morton as he kept showing me a nose during those cautions,” DeCamp said. “But come to find out it was Jamie (Passmore). Glad I was able to hold him off.”
The game plan for DeCamp was to maintain a low line from the start and it paid off.
“We started on the pole and I was just going to cover the bottom and protect my line, said DeCamp. “But the track got abrasive and took a little bit of rubber and became one lane. It paid off starting on the front row.”
Passmore was not able to catch DeCamp and settled for a season best second place. Morton held on to third while Kent fell to fourth. Alex Sewell picked up fifth and points leader Harli White worked her way to sixth from 15th starting position.
Late yellow flags helped Passmore close on DeCamp but also hurt him with three laps remaining.
“It did,” said Passmore who started 11th to earn the AmeriFlex Hose and Accessories Hard Charger award. “It makes the car get tight. You get use to it then you don’t run into the corners as hard.”
Passmore knew he had his work cut out for him with the pace DeCamp was setting.
“He was just as fast as I was,” Passmore said. “If we had got to those lapped cars I think I would have had a chance.
“It was a lot of fun. I hope it was a good race for everyone to watch.
“He (DeCamp) is a good kid. He is a good racer.”
It was a good weekend for Morton who finished third to go with a second place finish on Friday at Monett. The points earned move Morton to fifth in points right behind his brother Kade.
“Our car ended up being good both nights,” said Morton.
If he could have one key lap back from Saturday night it might have been two second place finishes or even another win.
“I ran into the corner too hot and was not able to grab the brakes soon enough and he just went underneath me,” said Morton speaking of the move Passmore made to take over second.
One red flag and four yellows occurred during the 25-lapper. On lap 12 the red waved for Joshua Tyre and Kyle Clark. Tyre blew an engine putting two holes in the engine block and igniting an engine fire. Tyre was not hurt but did go home with the Dyno Services of Oklahoma Hard Luck award. Clark had an exhaust fire which was quickly put out.
On lap 14 Casey Wills and Perry Pickard tangled coming off turn four bringing out the first yellow. During that time points runner-up Brian McClelland suffered a left front flat and exited to the pits.
Four laps later Wills spun to bring out another yellow then the final yellow waved on lap 22 for Kacee Frazier.
Tri-State Speedway
June 15, 2013
Event 9
Car count: 21
(Pos-Car-Driver-Start)
AmeriFlex Hose and Accessories Heat
1, 4J-Jamie Passmore[3]. 2, 5$-Danny Smith[5]. 3, 8-Alex Sewell[2]. 4, 2-Mickey Walker[4]. 5, 00-Kacee Frazier[6]. 6, 7F-Joshua Tyre[1]. 7, 3G-Jeff Garnett[7].
Bob Hurley Auto Family Heat
1, 31-Casey Wills[1]. 2, 26-Rafe Essary[2]. 3, 84-Alex DeCamp[6]. 4, 7m-Chance Morton[5]. 5, 87F-Brian McClelland[7]. 6, 11-Michael Tyre[3]. 7, 78-Perry Pickard[4].
Drive Shafts Inc. Heat
1, 88-Terry Easum[7]. 2, 9$-Kyle Clark[1]. 3, 8M-Kade Morton[4]. 4, 55-Johnny Kent[5]. 5, 17W-Harli White[6]. 6, 007-Michael Bookout[2]. 7, 94-Dan Schnackenberg[3].
OCRS A Feature
1, 84-Alex DeCamp[1]. 2, 4J-Jamie Passmore[11]. 3, 7m-Chance Morton[3]. 4, 55-Johnny Kent[2]. 5, 8-Alex Sewell[10]. 6, 17W-Harli White[15]. 7, 8M-Kade Morton[7]. 8, 5$-Danny Smith[8]. 9, 11-Michael Tyre[17]. 10, 00-Kacee Frazier[14]. 11, 007-Michael Bookout[18]. 12, 88-Terry Easum[5]. 13,78-Perry Pickard[20]. 14, 3G-Jeff Garnett[19]. 15, 94-Dan Schnackenberg[21]. 16, 31-Casey Wills[6]. 17, 87F-Brian McClelland[12]. 18, 2-Mickey Walker[13]. 19, 9$-Kyle Clark[4]. 20, 7F-Joshua Tyre[16]. 21, 26-Rafe Essary[9[.
AmeriFlex Hose and Accessories Hard Charger: Jamie Passmore +9.
Dyno Services of Oklahoma Hard Luck: Joshua Tyre.