Published: May 20, 2014
Bennett snaps 38-race drought with feature victory
7-time champ wins first race since 2011
By NICHOLAS DETTMANN
Daily News
SLINGER — Lowell Bennett always held out hope his next
feature victory at Slinger Superspeedway would come sooner rather than later.
The seven-time track champion didn’t think he’d have to wait
this long.
On Sunday night, Bennett won the 60-lap super late model
feature in the Alan Kulwicki Memorial, giving him his first feature victory
since Aug. 21, 2011 — a span of 38 races.
Never in his career had the Neenah native gone winless in a
season at Slinger, but that’s what happened in 2012 and 2013.
“You always hope for that next win,” Bennett said. “When you
go a long time like that without one, it just means all that much more.”
Bennett led 50 of the 60 laps in the race, but spent about
48 of those laps trying to hold off defending track champion Steve Apel.
Apel was passively aggressive. He didn’t make too many moves
to try to overtake Bennett, but he stayed close to Bennett’s back bumper,
hoping the five-time Slinger Nationals champion would make a mistake. It never
happened.
In the closing laps, Apel pushed the envelope a bit, trying
to get past Bennett. Each time that happened, Bennett held off Apel, who went
on to finish second.
“I love racing Lowell Bennett,” Apel said. “He always gives
me a lane to race.”
Rich Loch, who led the first 10 laps of the race, finished
in third, his best finish since taking sixth June 26, 2011. Loch hasn’t won a
feature since Aug. 21, 2005.
“It was a good run,” Loch said. “I was hoping we could keep
them off on the restart. They were beating up out there.”
Loch lost the lead to Bennett after the third restart of the
race because of a caution.
“The car was pretty good,” Loch said. “The car’s getting
closer. It wasn’t quite right, but I was pretty happy to finish third.”
Austin Luedtke was fourth and Conrad Morgan, the Miller Lite
Season Opener winner May 4, rounded out the top five.
Bennett had a long winter as he and his crew built a new
chassis for this season at Slinger.
He and his crew already did that at Bennett’s home track —
Wisconsin International Raceway in Kaukauna — and had a lot of success. He also
felt good about the car, adding it was “phenomenal.”
So needing to do something to get back into victory lane and
with new optimism, Bennett made the commitment to build a second new car,
modeling it after the car he built for WIR.
“I loved that other car so much after I drove it,” Bennett
said. “We had a good handle on that car.”
Bennett also watched his friend Morgan win the last feature
race and thought: Why not me?
“He and I showed the old guys can still get on the wheel and
get after it,” Bennett said. “We aren’t going to lay down and give them a wave.
We’re going to race these people.
“There’s something to say about experience too.”
Bennett was able to keep his car on the bottom line for most
of the race. But he wasn’t as successful in doing so once the race get past
halfway.
Both Bennett and Apel thought that would’ve been the turning
point for Apel to take the lead.
“As soon as Lowell moved up to the outside, I figured for
sure I could get down to the bottom,” Apel said. “The car got a little too
tight at the end. I probably should’ve pushed a little bit harder earlier in
the race.”
Holding off Apel more than once while running the high line
convinced Bennett the night belonged to him. Bennett is the track’s winningest
driver since 1998 with 51 victories, more than 20 ahead of his closest competition.
“It was fun being in the cockpit,” Bennett said in victory
lane. “This new car has come out of the box phenomenal here. I couldn’t be more
proud of my guys back in the pits with how hard they worked.”
Wayne Freimund won a shortened limited late model feature.
The race was called after 20 of 40 laps because of a
multi-car crash in Turn 1 that collected Al Stippich, Alex Prunty, Danny Church
and Jerry Mueller.
The accident started when liquid began to pour out of
Stippich’s car, which ignited a chain-reaction crash. Mueller was injured in
the crash and transported to a hospital.
Details on Mueller’s condition and injury were not
available.
Also picking up feature victories were Mark Deporter (area
sportsman), Ron Schmitt (Figure 8) and Steve Dickson (Slinger Bees).
The midwest sportsman division was off.
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