2017 Brockville Fall Nationals crowns Dirtcar champions

2017 Brockville Fall Nationals crowns Dirtcar champions The 2017 edition of the 1000 Islands RV Fall Nationals are in the record books. The two-day even was one of the best in recent memory with a capacity crowd on both days. Well over 200 cars made the journey to the famed Bull Ring to put on a spectacular show for fans. Friday nights action saw the Super Dirtcar series battle it out on the famed 3/8-mile oval with Billy Decker picking up his 4th win of the season. Decker who drove a flawless race fended off the hard charging Jimmy Phelps who briefly lead the race until Decker drove down under Phelps to take the lead and never looked back. Phelps along with Matt Sheppard and local driver Ryan Arbuthnot battled for the second and third place, through out the 100 laps feature. #91 Billy Decker winner of the Big Block Modified feature. Photo credit: Don Simpson Podium of the Big Block Modified feature (#91 Billy Decker, #98h Jimmy Phelps, #9s Matt Sheppard). Photo credit: Don Simpson Also on tap for Friday nights action was the Dirtcar Sportsman series, which was dominated by local driver Dylan Evoy. Dylan lead the 31car field After tacking the lead over from Kyle Inman on lap 15 and drove on to take the win unchallenged, while Dave Marcuccilli who made the long trek up to the Fall Nationals finished in 12th place accumulating enough points to win the 2017 Dirtcar Sportsman series title. #83 Dylan Evoy winner of the Sportsman feature. Photo credit: Don Simpson #M1 Dave Marcuccilli 2017 champion of the DIRTcar Sportsman serie. Photo credit: Don Simpson The Dirtcar Pro stocks were also on the card for Friday’s event, which was won by Guy Viens, after a long hard fought battle with Dan Older, Stephane Lebrun and Jocelyn Roy. #15 Guy Viens winner of the Pro Stock feature. Photo credit: Don Simpson Saturday portion of the event had the return of the ESS 360 Sprint cars along with the 358 Modified Dirtcar series. With inclement weather on the doorsteps of the track, race officials hastily got the show underway early as to avoid the possibility of a rain out. The Ess Sprint car feature was up first in the feature line-ups. With 16 cars taking the green flag Jeff Cook in the number 10 car took a commanding lead early on. As the race unfolded Jason Barney in the #87 followed closely by Mike Mahaney in the #33 chased down Cook and both got by him on lap 11 as Cook swung wide in turns one and two. Barney would open up a small lead on the #33 car and would go on to take the win. Up next was the 358 Modified feature as some light rain began to fall. The 30-car field took the green flag with Erick Rudolph in the #25 taking the lead. For the next 85 laps it would be a close battle between Rudolph and Luke Whitteker in the 38 Special and Dale Planck in the #7mx car. Lap after lap the three duked it out until Mike Maresca in the M7 car made a late race challenge, creating a four-way battle for the lead. With just 15 laps to go the #25 car of Rudolph spun coming out of turn 4,relegating the lead to Maresca in the M7, with Luke in the 38 Special, Dale Planck and David Hebert in the “one” car hard on his heals. With just 5 to go Whitteker along with Planck ducked down under Maresca, folded by David Hebert to take the chequered flag. Podium of the 358-Modified feature (#38 Luke Whitteker, #7mx Dale Planck, #ONE David Hébert). Photo credit: Don Simpson For Luke Whitteker this capped of a dream season winning his first Dirtcar series race. #38 Luke Whitteker winner of the 358-Modified feature. Photo credit: Don Simpson Steve Bernard in the #54 car would finish in the 7th position capping of his dream season, capturing the 2017 Dirtcar series Championship. #54 Steve Bernard 2017 champion of the DIRTcar 358 serie. Photo credit: Don Simpson