Aaron Turnbull doesn’t get a chance to race his Wissota Late Model very much but when he does, things seem to go very well.
The Estevan driver took his car around the track 25 times in the feature race Friday night at the Estevan Motor Speedway, all of them with the lead. The only real challenge late came from a hard charging Tyson Turnbull, who had the fastest car on the track for the last half.
“This is only the second time I’ve ran this car this year,” said Aaron Turnbull of his #21. “There just aren’t a lot of shows for them anymore. It used to be we could run them a dozen to 18 times a year within two or three hours of Estevan but there isn’t as many now. They’ve got a pretty good deal this year and we’ve had three nights in a row with Estevan, Williston and Minot.”
Aaron Turnbull said he’d be parking his IMCA modified for the rest of this year and focus on the late model for the rest of his racing season. But it had been difficult to determine how it would race when he hadn’t gotten it out very much this year.
“I went to Winnipeg last weekend and ran with it and I found some stuff wrong with it, so I was glad I did,” Aaron Turnbull said. “It was pretty good (Friday).”
But it was Aaron who grabbed a dominant early lead and started lapping cars midway through.
“I felt good but with about 10 to go, I was running the bottom the whole time and I could see that those lapped cars, it was getting harder and harder to get by them,” said Aaron Turnbull. “When I can’t get around them I can tell their line is that much faster and they’re keeping up to me. I knew I had to get on top there the last couple of laps and it’s probably good I did…
“I’d seen Tyson was in second and I figured he was probably catching me.”
In the other races of the evening, their father Ed Turnbull won the IMCA Modifieds race, while Landon Runge won the hobby stocks and Austin Daae won the street stocks.
“My car was good, (but) in the heat race I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and I cut a tire,” said Ed Turnbull, who won by a healthy margin over Joey Galloway. “No big deal. Lucky I had a good starting spot in the feature and I was able to keep the bottom. The car turned around on the bottom real nice and whenever I drove right in there it turned on me, so it felt good.”
Ed Turnbull is clearly no stranger to the track and knew the top was dry.
“That’s’ summertime racing for you, you always run into this,” he said. “The later in the season, the harder the track gets. That’s just the way it is and the way it’ll be till freeze up again.”
Daae also had a good night with his street stock car as he picked up his second win of the season.
“The car was really good and it’s been good all year,” said Daae. “Once I got the lead and the few cautions came out, it got pretty torn up. That’s what happens when theres really only one lane out there and you’ve got to (restart) double file. Everyone’s trying to grab every inch you can.
“I was just lucky enough to get the lead early and kind of run away a little bit.”
Runge meanwhile won his first race of the year over a charging Zach Lutz and his brother Leevi Runge, the current hobby stocks points leader, in a caution-filled race.
“Before the cautions came out I got put back a little bit but once I finally got out there it seemed to work out,” said Landon Runge.
The second last night of the EMS season is scheduled for Aug. 11 and championship night is set for Aug. 25.
