By Emily Knowlden
The excitement continued for this evening’s Burton’s Logging and Equipment Qualifying Night #2 of the Billy Whittaker Cars & Trux Confinement Classic presented by Dirt Track Digest. Fans were treated to yet another nail biter from flag-to-flag, ultimately ending with Alex Bergeron, the driver out of Drummondville, Quebec.
Bergeron, the winner of the fourth heat race, started on the outside pole for the 25-lap A-Main event and quickly jumped out front. He maintained his lead from start to finish, but had his work cut out for him the entire night.
“Tonight was a difficult night. We had a lot of pressure from behind, but we were able to work hard and stay on point,” said Bergeron.
Behind him it appeared everyone was running tail to tail on the top line with Bryce Bailey, the Isabell Racing driver out of Waverly, N.Y., running in second with Joel Berkley quickly closing the gap in third.
Berkley, the Monte Motorsports driver from Queensland, Australia, worked his way up to Bailey and after some light contact between the two, Berkley took over second just in time for the first caution of the night on lap nine.
As the race continued, Berkley and Bailey swapped positions as David Heileman, your Wednesday night Go to Confinement 25 winner from Milwaukee, Wis., began to close in. After trading a few slide jobs back and forth, Heileman took over third from Bailey and set his sights on the second place, Berkley.
As the third and final caution of the night flew on lap 18, the field lined up just one last time with Bergeron still out front, and Berkley and Heileman close behind him.
As the green flag dropped, Bergeron was able to extend his lead while Heileman put a move on Berkley to take over second place, but just couldn’t make it stick, ultimately falling back to third place where he would remain.
They stayed bumper to bumper, all running on the high side till the checkered flew on lap 25. Bergeron, Berkley, and Heileman were your top three, followed by Bailey in fourth and Pennsylvania 410 Sprint Car regular Brett Michalski rounding out the top five.
Second place Berkley was excited after his hard battle with Heileman stating, “David is one of the best in the game, and I was excited to be between two of the best. We will be a bit more aggressive tomorrow night.”
Similar to Wednesday night, Heileman was pleased with his performance. “Tonight was good. The car felt good in the feature. The cautions came at the wrong times so that hurt us a bit.”
Moving into tomorrow, we can expect another night of stout competition for the finale of the Billy Whittaker Cars & Trux Confinement Classic presented by Dirt Track Digest. The top 10 from each prelim night will automatically advance to the feature event, with the rest of the 60 car roster being filled out by points.
The Billy Whittaker Cars & Trux Confinement Classic presented by Dirt Track Digest is an iRacing event being held at the virtual Eldora Speedway. The entire program will be broadcast live through the Dirt Track Digest Facebook page and on DirtTrackDigest.TV in full HD with racing beginning at 7 p.m. on Saturday night. The feed features a Dirt Track Digest TV Xtra format with live scoring and in race commentating from the Lawn Control Ground and Snow Studios with Northeast announcers Shane Andrews and Mike Mallett.
Stay tuned to Dirt Track Digest as well as our Facebook page for the latest developments for the first ever Billy Whittaker Cars & Trux Confinement Classic presented by Dirt Track Digest.
The Confinement Classic is supported by the following sponsors: Bill Brown and Company, Billy Whittaker Cars & Trux, Burton’s Logging & Equipment, Camp Mayhem, DIG Racing Products, Empire Super Sprints, Ground Control Lawn and Snow, JZ iRacing Photos, KBS Racing Photos, Milton Cat, NESCOT, Ohsweken Speedway Racesource, Racers Preferred Models, RL Cleaning and Sprint Car Unlimited.
BURTON’S LOGGING AND EQUIPMENT A-MAIN FINISH (25-LAPS):
1 Alex Bergeron
2 Joel Berkley
3 David Heileman
4 Bryce Bailey
5 Brett Michalski
6 Cole Neuhalfen
7 Nelson Webster
8 Mason Hannagan
9 Richie Preston
10 Justin Williams
11 Kevin Click
12 Alex Smolders
13 Richard Murtaugh Jr.
14 Brian Parr
15 Trevor Trego
16 Austin Griffie
17 Justin Grant
18 Lance Dewease
19 Matthew Hearn
20 Joseph Buonagurio
21 Reed Whitney
22 Brian Cross
23 Craig Dunn
24 Kevin Swindell (DNS)