Tom Thomas wins the CRA Grand Rapids Radisson 125
Haney and DeVos take checkers; Steele and Reimersma win championships

Marne, MI— It was the final race of the 2009 season and, like most nights, rain played a role in the racing program. Tom Thomas won the CRA race, Dalton Haney was victorious in the Young Gun division and Tim DeVos got the win in the Burnips Equipment 4-Cylider division. The last of Berlin’s champions were crowned; Kelsey Steele won the Young Gun Championship and Dan Reimersma won the 4-Cylinder Championship.

The Burnips Equipment 4-Cylinders started the show, running a 30-lap feature. #T11 Jim Rhodes and #12 Jay Platz lead the field to the green flag. Platz took the lead early while the rest of the field was bottled up. The #7 of Ryan Hamm was giving chase, but both cars were blown away on lap 7 by #20 Tim DeVos. By lap 10, the field was spread out and DeVos was slicing through the field. The first caution of this race came on lap 17 when #20 Tyler Nawrocki’s car came to a stop in turn 3. On the restart, DeVos continued to lead and the battle for second was on between Hamm, #14 Jason DeVos, #100 Jason Scheid, #13 Dan Reimersma and #74 Paul Namey. Scheid was the first to clear that battle, rocketing to second and trying to run down DeVos. Lap 22 saw the final caution of the race; Hamm was off of the backstretch. Bunching the field back up made no difference to Devos, he dominated the race and got his second win of the season. The rest of the top ten were Scheid, J. DeVos, Reimersma, Namey, Platz, #19 Dave Avink, #9 Nick Curtis, #01 Rob Shoemaker and #51 Mel Parsons. Reimersma, who has been dominant all season long, won the championship by 24 points over Scheid.

Up next were the cars of the Young Gun division, #19 Dalton Haney started on the pole with #48 Seth Moody on his outside. Haney maintained his starting position and the battle was on for 2nd between #32 Gabe Ensing and #6 Brandon Hermiller on lap 7 and the pair was catching up with Haney. On lap 13, they were right on his bumper and #101 Lauren Bush joined the battle. The top 4 ran nose-to-tail and Hermiller was trying to take second from Ensing on the outside. Ensing threw the block on the backstretch and by the time they reached turn 4, Ensing had spun on lap 17. Haney continued to lead the final three laps to get his first win of the season. The rest of the finishing order was Bush, #18 Mitch Meppelink, Hermiller, #16 Kelsey Steele, Ensing and Moody. Kelsey Steele won the championship by 118 points over Ensing.

The CRA Super Series provided the finale of the night and of the 2009 season, #81 Terry Fisher, Jr. and #21 Chris Koslek started on the front row. The field was very racing from the get-go, but they didn’t get far in to the 125-lap feature before the caution was displayed; the #31 of Aaron Pierce spun on the frontstretch. Fisher continued to lead, stretching it out while #161 Fred Campbell was challenging Koslek for second, took the position and #222 Caleb Bisacky, #155 Chris Anthony and #16 Tom Thomas were also mixing it up with Koslek. On lap 32, the field was back to single-file racing and on lap 43, Campbell took the lead and Fisher was falling back. Series point leaders #72 Scott Hantz and #61 John VanDoorn were both looking for the 10th position, putting on a great battle. Anthony caught up with Koslek on lap 55 to try to take second and on lap 17, the pair was still embroiled. Caution was out again on lap 73 when #20 Brian Campbell’s engine blew. After clean up was complete, leader Fred Campbell got a good start, but on lap 77, Koslek took the lead, Anthony advanced to second and Thomas to third while Campbell went back to fourth. The top three were running very close and on lap 82, Thomas was up to second and going after Koslek for the lead. They raced side by side for two laps before Thomas took the lead on lap 86 and pulled away from the field. With 25 laps to go, Thomas was working traffic and all of his progress got erased when caution came out on lap 117. The field was bunched back up, tires cooled off and on the restart, Thomas got away as Anthony was working on Koslek, took the position, but there just was not enough time to catch Thomas. Thomas got the win and the rest of the top ten were Anthony, Koslek, #51 Alec Carll, Hantz, Campbell, VanDoorn, Bisacky, #26 Rick Turner and #2 Kenny Tweedy.

The School Bus races signaled the end of the night and the end of the 2009 racing season.

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