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Sam’s first win of the season gets taken away
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Sam with flag and trophy before the official ruling.
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Saturday night was set to be a good race, but the evening didn’t turn out as expected. The late model cars went out for qualifying. Sam went out 3rd & set the pace with a time of 18.745, but was beaten by A.J. Curelli’s 18.731, which put him on pole. A.J. drew a #3, which inverted the field. Despite the inversion, Sam kept outside pole position. The Car #5 of Colangelo started on pole with Sam alongside.
At the drop of the green flag Sam went side by side with #5 around the track, but Colangelo wasn’t giving up. A caution came out, causing a single file restart. Sam was trying to get around Jeremy who was putting up a good fight.
Finally on lap 4 Sam passed Jeremy and took the lead. A.J. made his way to 2nd place and challenged Sam a few times, but then dropped out of the race from a blown motor. This put Matt Martin in 2nd place, and he also tried everything to pass Sam. On a restart it took a few laps for Sam’s car to come back in, but once he settled back in he pulled away from Matt with each restart.
Sam took the Checkered flag about 3/4 of a straightaway ahead of Matt. The celebrations began, but were short lived. Sam went over the scales at tech—not once but 3 times—each time producing a different reading. The officials finally decided that he was underweight by 7 pounds…yes, 7 pounds! So they dq’d Sam and gave the race to Matt Martin. There was a lot of controversy over the decision. The Martin team didn’t want to take the win because they knew a mere 7 pounds shy couldn’t account for the margin that Sam beat Matt, but of course the officials have the final say and they would not rectify it.
Many of the other racers and most of the people in the pits couldn’t believe what had occurred. Everyone has complained about the inconsistency of the scales in the tech shed. Unfortunately, we fell victim to them on Saturday night.
Sam exhibited true sportsmanship Saturday night. Even though the win was taken away from him, he very maturely handed the trophy to Matt. The VCR team still contends that Sam was the winner of the race.
Mid Florida Cellular Late Model 50
OFFICIAL RESULTS - NEW SMYRNA SPEEDWAY, May 13
1. 66 Matt Martin
2. 05 Jeremy Colangelo
3. 4B Alan Bruns
4. 53 Darren Brown
5. 7 Johnny Casady
6. 40 Danny Esposito, Jr.
7. 2 A.J. Currelli
8. 47 David Gibbs
9. 63 Chris Lawrence
10. 22 Alli Owens
11. 73v Charlie Vest
12. 00 John Ripley
DQ 73 Sam Watts (weight)
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