Race Recap |
Air Show Atlantic 100 at Oyster Bed Speedway, July 31

John Flemming's Victory Lane photo after winning the Air Atlantic 100... (photo - Pat Healey/for Maritime Pro Stock Tour)

OYSTER BED BRIDGE, PE - Three-time Maritime Pro Stock Tour champion John Flemming got the proverbial monkey off his back Sunday at Oyster Bed Speedway by ending a winless drought that had lasted more than four seasons on the Parts for Trucks Pro Stock Tour. Flemming's win came just one week after what he describes as the "heartbreak" of his career in losing the IWK 250 with three-to-go after leading 227 of 250 laps. The PEI win was just as convincing with Flemming leading 65 of 100 laps. His margin of victory over Jonathan Hicken was 0.315-seconds; Darren MacKinnon was third while Wayne Smith and Dylan Gosbee rounded out the top five.

"It was starting to feel more like a gorilla than a monkey," said Flemming, whose last series win was September 9, 2006 - and clinching his third series title. "After last week I was starting to wonder if I was ever going to get one (a win) again. I knew we could do it but it seemed like luck was working against us. This feels just as good as my first Tour win."

Three of the top five finishers are from Prince Edward Island (Hicken, MacKinnon, and Gosbee), while Flemming and Smith are from the Halifax area of Nova Scotia. Gosbee scored the top five finish as a part-time rookie in just his third-ever series start.

Flemming's win earned him the Linde Group Most Laps Led Award and the King Freight Lines Halfway Award. Jerome Kehoe gained the most positions of any driver in the field and picked up the Vortex Brake Pads Hard Charger Award. Twenty-seven cars entered the event with all but one starting the feature; Randy Millar crashed in practice and was unable to continue.

The race saw just two cautions and took 32 minutes to complete.

Donald Chisholm started the day off by winning the Atlantic Tiltload Time Trials. Chisholm set the fast time of 13.515 seconds around the 1/3-mile oval in his #89 Keltic Ford Fusion. Chisholm finished 26th in the feature following an incident in the Dash. Smith won the Dash heat race; Chris Hughes and Shawn Tucker also won their heat races.

The win moved Flemming up three spots in the point standings, from seventh to fourth, just 32 markers behind leader Shawn Tucker.

Flemming's win sets the stage for the series next stop - the Atlantic CAT 250 at Scotia Speedworld on August 12-13 - an event for which Flemming is the inuagural winner (2000).

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