by Rick Warren

June 16, 2007

Chris Thornton returned to his 2006 form at Desoto Speedway Saturday night. Last years’ Champion, Thornton has been running only selected races this season, and showed that he hasn’t lost any speed with his reduced schedule.

Robbie Storer set fast time with a lap of 16.623 seconds, followed by Cody Blair at 16.654 seconds, while Richard Kelly was third fastest at 16.704 seconds.

Storer pulled a 5 for the inversion, placing Rick Sirmans on the pole, with Thornton on the outside of the front row. The second row was filled by Kelly and Blair, followed by Storer, Matthew Perkins, Chris Zimmerman, Gary Roebuck, Mitchell Webb and Marty Neikens filling the top ten.

On the start of the race, Sirmans took the lead followed by Kelly and Storer, with Thornton hung on the outside, finally falling into line in 4th spot.

On Lap 3, Kelly was able to drive under Sirmans to take the lead. Storer tucked onto Kellys’ bumper and followed under Sirmans to take second spot. Storer worked Kelly hard, and was able to get a good run under the 62 car to take the lead on lap 7. Thornton was shadowing the lead pack, looking for an opening, and on lap 9 went to the outside to grab 3rd spot. The battle for positions in the rest of the field was intense as well. The lead pack had separated from the field slightly, and the battle for 6th position involved several cars, including those of Neikens,Blair,Webb. Lap 14 saw Sirmans drop off the pace and pull into the infield with mechanical issues, ending his race. Thornton was on the move, and on lap 16 took second place from Kelly, and set his sights on Storer for the lead.

Thornton caught Storer and took over the lead on lap 19.

The race was slowed for only a few cautions, and remained very competitive thru the entire 50 laps. Storer and Kelly swapped positions a couple of times, while the battle to enter the top 5 remained intense, with several cars taking shots at moving into the top 5. Thornton went on to claim a Strong win, with Storer grabbing second position, and Cody Blair finishing strong to grab third.



Final Results Florida Mini Stock Challenge Desoto Speedway



1
#24 Chris Thornton

2
#9 Robbie Storer

3
#81 Cody Blair

4
#62 Richard Kelley

5
#29 Chris Zimmerman

6
#6 Mitchell Webb

7
#29x Randy Foote

8
#70 marty Neikens

9
99x Matthew perkins

10
#68 Mike Birk Jr.

11
#05 Rick Sirmans

12
#99 Jamie Kennedy
Kennedy

13
#V3 Rex Christensen

14
#5 Jeff Barnes

15
#96 Gary Roebuck