By James Essex
BROWNSTOWN, IN (March 15, 2014) – Joe Janowski of Carmel, IN captured Brownstown (IN) Speedway’s opening night Late Model feature event for the second year in a row on Saturday Night. Janowski took the lead on the 11th lap and had to hang on until the final lap as John Gardner Jr. of Germantown Hills, IL and Tim Prince of Heltonville, IN nearly kept him out of the winners circle.
Prince, the 2013 track champion at Florence (KY) Speedway took the lead at the start of the 25-lap main event. Prince held the point until Duane Chamberlain took the lead away from him on lap three. Chamberlain then battled with both Prince and Marty O’Neal as those three pulled away from the pack.
Chamberlain coming off the best season of his career last year was looking for his first-ever win at the historic ¼ mile oval. He held a narrow advantage over Prince and O’Neal as the first of three cautions occurred on lap eight.
After the first restart from caution O’Neal would take over the second position from Prince. A lap later is when the complete complexion of the race would change. Chamberlain would fire into turn number one and get crossways as Prince and O’Neal would pile into him. Chamberlain and O’Neal were done for the night and Prince would pit and rejoin the field without losing a lap.
On the restart Illinois driver John Gardner Jr. would inherit the point, with Janowski, who started tenth now running in second. Janowski quickly made his way past Gardner for the lead. Janowski would lead the rest of the way despite the efforts of both Gardner and Prince made a valiant last-lap charge to steal the win from Janowski but they both came up short.
“We probably had a fourth-place car tonight,” said Janowski in Brownstown’s winners circle. “Cody Mahoney came over and helped up out, he made some adjustments and got us going better, this is a new MasterSbilt car. I had sold a lot of my stuff last year, it feels good to get back behind the wheel.”
“I know it was full-moon tonight, when those top three cars wrecked, I thought I had a real good shot at winning tonight. That was some tough-luck for those guys, they were the class of the field. The track wasn’t too bad at all, there was a few rough spots out there, but with the winter we have had I think the track crew did a great job preparing the track.”
Veteran Steve Barnett of Franklin, In finished fourth followed by Mike Meyers of Fayetteville, OH.
NOTES; Janowski’s fourth career Brownstown win came in the Alan Magner owned MasterSbilt Race Car with a Bill Tranter Racing Engines. His sponsors include: Borgman Farms, Bob Poynter Ford, 31 Auto Group, C&S Prototyping, Becks Seeds, Prudential Insurance, Kendall Farms, Print Worx and NKA Insurance….Barnett was debuting a new C.J. Rayburn Race Car entry, Barnett a 4-time track champion (tied with Jim Curry for most all-time at Brownstown) has 50 career wins at the track he started his career at in 1976…Waverly, OH’s Billy Gullion was making his Brownstown debut, despite arriving late to the track, he was running fourth in the main event when he struck a tire barrier in turn two ending his night with front-end damage to his car…Brownstown will host the 17th Annual Indiana Icebreaker for the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series this Saturday Night, March 22nd paying $10,000 to win.
Feature Finish March 15 1) Joe Janowski 2) John Gardner Jr. 3) Tim Prince 4) Steve Barnett 5) Mike Myers 6) Chad Stapleton 7) Greg Kendall 8) Bob Gardner 9) Rick Robinson 10) Adam Bowman 11) Duane Chamberlain 12) Marty O’Neal 13) Billy Gullion