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Turnbull grows his lead with Speedway win

Tempting as it might be to try and equal his own Estevan Motor Speedway record for most wins in an IMCA modified season, Aaron Turnbull has his eye on the bigger picture.
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Tempting as it might be to try and equal his own Estevan Motor Speedway record for most wins in an IMCA modified season, Aaron Turnbull has his eye on the bigger picture.Turnbull won his fourth feature race of the EMS season Saturday, beating his brother Tyson across the finish line and staking out a 12-point lead atop the mod standings.If he can string together finishes of seventh or better in the final two races of the season, he is assured of his second modified points championship at the Speedway."It's somewhat comfortable, but it's not insurmountable that's for sure," Turnbull said Monday. "It would only take one bad race to erase that, so I've still got to stay consistent and run up front."Bad races have been few and far between this year for Turnbull, who has four wins and one second-place finish in seven points races at Estevan.Saturday his biggest concern was merely finishing the race."I started in the sixth row and everybody was kind of trying to win it on the first lap so I kind of held back and dropped back to almost last at the start there," he said. "There was getting to be quite a few cautions so I just let everybody take each other out and kept on moving, and all of a sudden I was in second place behind Tyson."We had another restart, he went to the bottom [of the track], I went to the top and the top seemed to be a little bit better if you could miss the bumps. We had a pretty good battle there for awhile and then I passed him for the win."Tyson's finish vaulted him past Joren Boyce and Jim Harris in the standings and into second behind Aaron with 238 points.Boyce sits third at 237 and Harris is fourth at 236. Saturday's third-place finisher, Les McLenehan, is also still in the mix as he sits fifth with 232 points.Saturday's hobby stock feature proved, if nothing else, that Dana Brandt is human after all. The youngster from Minot, N.D. was stopped short in his bid to win for a ninth straight time at the Speedway, though only after contact with Justin Medler knocked him from the feature.Dallas Rice took the checkered flag and moved into second in the standings, though Brandt, who leads 349-321, should still only need to show up for the final two races of the year to claim the points title.And Rocky Alexander moved to within eight points of points leader Nathan Burke after winning the IMCA stock car feature. Burke finished fourth and leads 268-260.Another highlight Saturday was the annual Faster Pastor race, which was won by Tim Pippus from the Estevan Church of Christ.The next scheduled date for the Speedway is Monday when the NLRA late models make a special appearance. All regular classes will also be run for points.The season is slated to wrap up Sept. 18.