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Alumbaugh Claims Missouri State Fair Title

Winged Outlaw Warriors closed out the 2010 Missouri State Fair action with heat race wins going to, Rusty Potter of Boonville, Austin Alumbaugh of Higginsville, and Randy Martin of California in the three eight-lap races to set the stage for the twenty-lap main event. Alumbaugh earned the coveted pole position for the 360s with Martin claiming the outside row. Cody Baker and Brian Brown started the race in row two with Sedalia driver Jonathan Cornell and Potter making up the third row. Alumbaugh quickly showed his muscle and set the bar high for the rest of the competition as he blazed around the half mile track with Martin falling in behind the leader for second just in front of Brown in third. Drivers searched for their preferred grooves all around the track both high and low as the first five laps quickly went by, until a yellow flag on lap six waved over the field for the stalled car of Taylor Walton on the front stretch. At the same time, third-running Brown clipped the front of his car while running way down on the low side out of turn two and causing major damage to his machine. Brown tried to make his way back to the Midland Sports Cards pit area on his own but ultimately had to be towed into the infield to make repairs. WoW officials quickly put Brown on the clock, in which he had two minutes to make repairs before the field went back to racing. Brown’s crew were quick on the punch and managed to get Brown back out with 45 seconds to spare.

As the race resumed, Alumbaugh again stepped out to a quarter straightaway lead over second-running Martin and Cornell, who had moved to third from his fifth starting position. Running inside the top three was a difficult task for another driver as Martin, like his rival Brian Brown, found himself in trouble on the back chute with a stalled car by lap ten with the caution again waving over the field. Although Martin’s crew was able to get a reprieve after the caution flew, only to be followed immediately by another quick caution period, he did make it back out onto the track but quickly pulled back in, unable to continue the race. The series’ all-time winning driver was scored in twenty-second place at race end.

At the halfway point, Alumbaugh now had Cornell to deal with in order to claim the win. As the field again settled into a nice race rhythm, Brown quickly gained positions after restarting at the tail after his spin and was in the top ten again by lap fourteen. Lap-after-lap Alumbaugh mastered his way through the lapped traffic to keep Sedalia’s Cornell behind him. Three-fourths of the way through the race, sixteen year old Cody Baker was in the mix having a great run in the third position with R.J. Johnson of Tampa, Florida securely running in fourth and WoW point leader Eric Todd fifth. On lap eighteen, Cornell had one last chance to try and maneuver his way through traffic but it was not to be as the ‘Man of Steel’ from Higginsville, Austin Alumbaugh, was just too strong. It was Austin’s second WoW win of the year and first since way back on May 29th at 24 Raceway in Moberly, MO. Cornell had a great run to second place from fifth, Baker’s youth and exuberance brought him home to a solid third-place run with Johnson holding strong in fourth, Todd fifth and Kansas City’s Jon Corbin advancing from his eleventh starting position to take sixth.

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