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Math class was in session on Saturday night at South Buxton Raceway.

   Extra Laps

+ Extra Points

+ Extra Money

= Extra Wrecks.

After two relatively tame nights to open the 2010 season, the wreckers, infield and safety crews spent as much time on the track as the racers, as a series of multi-car incidents marred the night’s racing action.

The majority of wrecks occurred between turns 1 and 2, including a pileup on the first lap of the Dover Sanitation UMP Late Models which collected six of the 10 starters.

The same corner also created havoc in the Windride Transportation Services Sport Stocks and Four Seasons Driver Education Comp 4 feature races, where numerous cars went to the pits on the hook.

The attrition left just five cars on the lead lap in three of the feature races and four in the other.

The feature winners, obviously, managed to dodge the mayhem.

Chatham’s Jason Haskell won his first career feature race in the Late Models while Jim Dale Jr. of Shrewsbury won his second straight in the Schinkels Gourmet Meats UMP Modifieds.

Chatham’s Eric Vanderiviere led all 30 laps of the Sport Stocks feature while Cottam’s Rob Quick won his first Comp 4 feature since his 2008 championship race victory.

All four features ran an extra 10 laps, with extra points and money included, as a result of last Saturday’s features being cancelled by the fog.

Haskell’s first career win truly a Family Affair

Jason Haskell may have driven into Victory Lane alone, but his entire family helped pave his way to his first career feature win.

And he made sure to thank everyone - especially his father Rick, a long time track worker and supporter who died just before the 2007 season.

“I’ve been waiting three years for this, to thank Dad,” a teary-eyed Haskell said.

“He’s been around this track for many years. He didn’t get the chance to see the three of us race together, but I know he was watching this and I know he’s proud.”

Jason’s feature win is the first for the Haskell family. His brother Gregg finished ninth with mechanical trouble while his other brother Pat, who is taking the year off from racing, is the pit flagman.

The three carry their father’s initials in their car numbers - Jason in the RH94, Gregg in the RH21 and Patrick in the RH22.

“What a great night to do it, our whole family is here … my mom (Debbie) and sister (Kristen), our kids, all of my sponsors,” he said.

“It’s going to be a fun night,” he smiled, looking ahead to the post-race party.

“Gregg, Pat and I work real hard together on the cars. Gregg gave me some tips tonight  that he probably regrets now,” Jason laughed.

“The best scenario would have been me and Gregg battling it out for the win … but it feels good. I can’t wait for next week.”

Haskell started in the second row and battled Ridgetown’s Dale Glassford for second place for several laps, well behind the leader Kirk Hooker of Chatham.

Haskell took up the chase alone when Glassford had trouble on lap 11 and lost three spots.

As he tried to chase down Hooker, Haskell admitted he was relegating himself to a second-place finish.

“I had a couple of good looks at him on restarts, but didn’t think I could finish it off,” Haskell said.

But as Hooker was approaching the flagstand to complete 20 laps, a big plume of smoke came out of the back of the No. 38 car as it slowed dramatically before taking the hard right to the pits.

It was a cruel déjà vu for Hooker, who also blew a motor while leading the Opening Night feature on May 15 with 10 laps to go, allowing Glassford to take the checkered.

And to make the taste even more bitter for Hooker, had this been a normal 20-lap feature, he would have won Saturday as he crossed the line ahead of Haskell after the motor expired.

Instead, Haskell inherited the lead, held off a brief challenge from Glassford and went on the make family history.

“Luckily a caution came out right after he (Hooker) broke,” Haskell said. “I was getting a little excited so I was able to settle myself down.

Once he got in the lead, Haskell said he concentrated on keeping his line and not making any mistakes.

“I knew Dale was there, but he’s a clean racer so I didn’t have to worry about him wrecking me.  I just looked forward and tried not to mess up.”

Glassford held on for a second-place finish, followed by Chatham’s C.J. Field - driving for an injured Brad Authier - Chatham’s Jim Jones and Wallaceburg’s Mike Lewis, the last car on the lead lap.

The fifth-place finish had to feel like a win for Lewis and his crew, who had a massive repair job following the wreck on the first lap of the heat race as the 05 car got the worst of the six-car pileup.

Hooker won the heat race, his third checkered flag of the season, but little consolation for seeing a second shot at a feature go up in smoke.

Haskell now has three checkered flags for his career. His first came last Aug. 22 in a heat race, before picking up his second flag in last Saturday’s heat race.

Vanderiviere keeps cool while others’ temperatures rise 

Eric Vanderiviere walked around his winning No. 93 car and knocked the mud off before putting it on the trailer.

Eren Vanderiviere put his second-place No. 29 car onto its trailer in pieces.

The comparison of the top-two finishing cars was an indication of the carnage in the Windride Transportation Services Sport Stocks feature.

The elder Vanderiviere, 27, started up front and led all 30 laps for his fourth career feature win.

The younger Vanderiviere, 24, who lost the nose on his car in a heat race crash, was also caught up in a couple of melees in the feature but managed to nurse his mangled machine home to a second-place finish.

 ”It was a weird night, it seemed like every second lap we had a caution,” said Eric, as all of the action happened behind him.

“I don’t know what was going on, I’d come around and see all the messes,” he said.

Although he escaped the mayhem, the feature winner had issues of his own.

“I was praying, because my temperature was sitting at 220 the whole time,” he said. “I didn’t know whether to come in or stay out.

“I seen the halfway (flags) and everybody up here on the (pit) stand was showing me that I had a big lead, so I backed off the throttle, and the temperature stayed at 220.”

He also had visions of opening night, when he blew a rad hose while running second and wound up in the pits with a 10^th-place finish.

Gerald Martin of Essex, his stepson Doris Lajeunesse of Essex, and Kingsville’s Tiffany Ellis were the only other cars to finish on the lead lap.

A wreck on the second lap involved eight of the 14 starters, including two-time defending points champion Louis Clements, who managed to work his way back to second at one point but had to pit a second time for a flat tire. He finished three laps down in 10^th.

Merlin’s Steve Shaw and Wheatley’s Paul Gossmann won the heats, but both were caught up in the first wreck.

Dale continues hot streak that started last August

It took Jim Dale Jr. until August 1 to win his first checkered flag and feature of the 2009 season.

Three weeks into 2010, Dale Jr. has two feature wins and four checkered flags as he takes aim at a second straight and seventh career points championship.

“The car is working and we’re not having problems,” Dale Jr. said after his second straight feature win to open the 2010 season.

“We changed the shocks, the bars … everything we changed worked.

“Everyone seems to be having issues. We go through the car every week … good maintenance and good results.”

Dating back to Aug. 1, Dale Jr. has won six of the last seven feature. The only blemish was the championship race, in which he finished third in a race won by Chatham’s Jeff Daniels.

Daniels was one of the early victims of Saturday’s carnage as he hit the wall nose-first in the heat race and sat out the feature.

The Modifieds put on the cleanest of the four features, with only a couple of cautions.

Dale Jr. took the lead from Rutherford’s Chris Van De Wiele on the second lap and led the final 28 circuits.

His only challenge came late when he had to deal with lapped traffic, but it never came in to play.

Woodslee’s Clayton Smith, making his season debut, emerged from a great three-car battle to take second in the latter laps but had no time to chase down the leader.

Leamington drivers Justin Coulter and Paul DeGoey finished third and fourth, the only other lead lap cars.

Dale Jr. said he was more concerned about the track than who was running second.

“The way the track was tonight, if you drive the track, you’ll normally do all right,” he said. “You don’t drive the other cars. If you drive the other cars, you go in too fast and miss your corners, and you’re goofed.

“We knew it was going to be dry in the feature … it was dry in the heat and knew it was going to worse. I just stayed on the bottom and was light on the throttle.”

Van De Wiele and Merlin’s Brad McLeod won the heats but both had breakdowns in the feature, finishing 13^th and 14^th respectively in their haulers.

Quick ends feature famine in Comp 4s

After a miserable 2009, Rob Quick returned to his championship form on Saturday night.

The Cottam driver doubled his checkered flag total for the entire ‘09 season by winning the heat and feature races in the Four Seasons Driver Education Comp 4s.

Quick, who dominated the class in 2007 and 2008, picked up only one checkered flag last year, a heat race late in the season.

“I hope you’ll be seeing a lot of me here this year,” Quick told the fans, with a laugh, in his post-race interview in victory lane.

It was Quick’s first feature win since capturing the 2008 championship race, a season in which he won five features and 14 total races. He was the division points champion in 2007.

Quick, who entered the night ninth in the drivers standings, will make a huge jump as extra points were awarded in the feature race (he earned 60 points for the win as opposed to the normal 40) plus several other front runners got caught up in multi-car crashes in the early laps.

“I thought I was going to be in the first two … they happened right in front of me,” Quick said, as more than half of the 16-car field was involved in wrecks before a lap could be completed.

“I let up, found a hole then gassed it and luckily got through ‘em both.”
Quick moved into the top-five on lap four and continued his march to the front.

He pulled into second behind Charing Cross’ Nate McNally on lap 10 and took the lead on lap 17 when the leader pulled into the infield with mechanical issues.

Quick was virtually unchallenged over the final eight laps to end his feature famine.

While he would have much rather raced McNally for the win, Quick said that after all of the bad luck he’s endured, “I’ll take this!

 ”I think it would have been a great finish,” Quick said. “I was a little faster and I could see I was catching him.”

Blenheim’s Shawn Jones, who had to be pushed to the pits with a battery problem under caution after the first wreck, was able to get back on the track for the restart and rebounded for a second-place finish.

Kingsville’s Norm DeSerrano was third, Chatham’s Rick Balasin fourth and Belle River’s David Bacon fifth, the last car on the lead lap.

McNally finished seventh despite spending the final seven laps on the infield, an indication of the attrition in the feature.

Quick’s win follows McNally’s victory on opening night, as the new ‘Mini-Mods’ are 2-for-2 in features. They also won Saturday’s heats.

Pit Notes

• Authier suffered a broken left arm after a collision with Jason Haskell last week. He will likely miss next week as well. He chose C.J. Field to drive his No. 1A car, which he drove to an impressive third-place finish in his Late Model debut. However, Field finished 12^th in the Modified feature after getting involved in a couple of mishaps.
• Haskell’s RH94 is the former Joe Field car, which won five feature races over the last two years  - three by Field in ‘08 and two by Andrew Reaume in ‘09.
• Quick will receive the Len Bryden Sr. Memorial Trophy for his feature win. When he won his five features in 2008, he received a pizza each time from the Garage Restaurant, who sponsored the class that year. “Maybe that’s what’s wrong … put a pizza out there and I’ll win every week!” he laughed about his famine.
• The four Best Appearing Cars - Eren Vanderiviere, McNally, Dale Jr. and Hooker - were presented with huge picture plaques, created by Dean Outhouse of Outhouse Image & Design. Hooker immediately donated his plaque to the Junior Fan Club to give away to a lucky youngster.
• The Junior Fan Club will have a bicycle for a lucky fan this coming Saturday, June 5, donated by Scott Schives, in memory of his son Cory who died at the age of 17 last June. The Comp 4s will race for the second annual Cory Schives Memorial Trophy.