Aaron Turnbull may have sped past all comers in the Kendall’s Supply Modifieds feature at the Estevan Motor Speedway on Friday, but a driver who had not won a single race all season captured the class championship.
Kody Scholpp entered championship night at the Estevan Motor Speedway leading the Kendall’s Supply Modifieds point race 256-250 over Mike Hagen with Riley Emmel trailing a further three nicks behind. All three started the feature sitting in the bottom seven of the 14-car and 25-lap race that began with Hagen and Emmel getting into a crash with Ryan Harris on the fourth corner during the second lap that caused exterior damage to both cars.
Tyler Wagner jumped into the lead after the restart with Ed Turnbull and his son Aaron battling behind him for the second spot until Wagner drove off the track while riding high on the second corner of the fifth lap putting him back down into the field. Emmel jumped into the third position on the Wagner miscue with Aaron winning the battle for first place with his father 11 laps in by running along the top of the track. During this time, Scholpp and Hagen carefully made their way to the front group with Scholpp eventually finishing behind Emmel in fourth place.
“Mike and me had a battle going on,” said Scholpp. “He was on the bottom and I was on the top and then he tried to slide up in front of me and I just let him have the line, figured he could take the top and I ended up having a better race car and getting around him on the bottom.”
Aaron said getting to the top of the track and out in front as quickly as possible were the keys to his win because he knew the bottom line would go away making it hard to pass anyone later in the race.
“My dad was racing, so I figured he’d be the guy to beat,” said Aaron. “Tonight the track was in his favour, so I was trying to get to the front before he did and I just got lucky and picked the right lines at the right times.”
Jeremy Swanson entered the Stock Cars feature with a 14-point lead in the championship race, but that didn’t stop him from adding another main win to his season. Starting 10 cars back in the 13-car and 20-lap feature, Swanson quickly advanced to the top three reaching the second spot four laps in by passing Lindsey Wagner on the bottom in the fourth corner.
Swanson then engaged in a door-to-door battle with Lee Schaff over the next few laps before jumping ahead on the ninth circuit. Gregg Mann moved up to compete with Swanson for the top position over the final 10 laps, but couldn’t overcome the points leader.
“You think of all the effort of 19 years of this,” said Swanson, noting this is the first season championship of his career. “You think about the money and the time, the blood and sweat and tears and everything else. All my best friends in the world are racers or have been racers as several have died along the way. It’s just that there are a lot of people who put into this deal all the way through, so it’s hard to beat.”
It took 19 turns of the 25-car and 20-lap High Energy Performance Hobby Stocks feature for Trever Haas to make his way from the 12th position when the green flag was raised to a spot in the top three. Haas made his move running a high line the next lap to jump into first place, but the Minot, North Dakota, driver still had to overcome a strong push by Riley Raynard over the final few laps before he could celebrate his first feature win.
“I've been racing for two years and I've been close a couple of times this year and I finally sealed the deal,” said Haas. “My granddad was (instrumental in) me getting into racing and he passed away when I was a kid and I just can't thank him enough. I know he's up there watching over me and this one's for him.”
Leevi Runge enjoyed a comfortable 37-point lead over Raynard heading into the championship feature and locked up his second straight title with a seventh-place finish. Runge said a flat tire with four laps to go held him back from competing for the feature win, but he’ll still take the season championship.
Scholpp said the Kendall’s Supply Modifieds championship is his first season title in 12 years of racing and having that history behind him may have led to the win. He said the focus this season was on running and finishing each race consistently without worrying about capturing the checkered flag.
“I didn’t get a single feature win, but I think I had four maybe five second-places,” said Scholpp. “Towards the end of the year you’re just more focused on ‘ok, you’re leading points or you’re in the running for the points race’ and you just focus on finishing races and finishing well and trying to finish in front of most of the guys that are right behind you. That’s more of what I focused on tonight. I went out there and any wreck that I saw I just took my time, got around them or the people that were aiming for my door I just let them go and figured I’d pass them the next lap and it kind of turned out that way.”
