Nelson’s 4-peat in jeopardy

Valley City’s Luke Nelson is going to need a freight train of luck in order to pull off the four-peat this evening at the 39th Annual Stock Car Stampede being held at Jamestown Speedway.

Nelson has won the last three consecutive WISSOTA Street Stock main events during the track’s capstone event, but a chance at winning what might prove to be an unmatchable four straight may have went up in smoke on Friday night.

Nelson was on the track for just a handful of seconds prior to the start of the second Street Stock heat race of the evening, when his car surprisingly quit running in turn No. 3. The Valley City driver never took the green flag, needed a push back to the pits, and will now have to fight his way from the back of the pack through today’s B-Mains in order to secure a starting spot for the main event later in the evening.

Horace’s Royce Jawaski went on to win the heat race, after battling door-to-door with Hannaford’s Rory Opp. Opp finished second.

Another notable one-two finish during the Stampede’s opening night of heat races came during the second Bomber heat of the night.

Jamestown’s Bryan Wolf came from the fourth starting spot to grab the win in the eight-lap event, with Wimbledon’s Devin Christ finishing second after starting sixth.

A total of 15 heat races were ran before rain washed out the remaining races. Racing action will beging today with 16 heat races left to run, beginning at 1 p.m. Complete results of the Stampede will be in Monday’s edition of The Sun.

Unofficial car-count estimates on Friday night had this year’s field of seven classes of cars numbering in upwards of 290 cars and drivers, rivaling 2008’s car count of 296.

The Stampede drew 265 cars and drivers last season.

The Stampede concludes this evening with B-Mains for all classes and feature events to follow. Racing resumes at 5 p.m., weather permitting.

Michael Savaloja is the auto racing editor at the Sun. He can be reached at mikes@jamestownsun.com or (701) 952-8461

Tags: auto racing, sports, stampede