August 30th, 1997

CHRIS PERLEY PULLS A "THREEPEAT" AT OSWEGO SPEEDWAY SUPER NATIONALS

Oswego, NY - Amesbury, MA's Chris Perley was a convincing winner of his third straight Budweiser ISMA Super Nationals at Oswego Speedway Saturday night, but it took him a little longer to take the lead this year. For the first two years, Perley led the entire 50-lap distance, but this year he didn't take the lead from Joe Gosek until lap 12. Perley remained unchallenged after that, picking up his third $8,000 check in as many years for the Vic Miller team.

Perley was almost as surprised as the rest when he talked about his third win after the race. "I figured I started the first two on the front row and grabbed the lead from the beginning," said Perley, "This year I started 9th and honestly thought I'd only be in the top four at the end. The car was pushing earlier in the day, but it seems to work better at night. As a matter of fact, we were getting a little nervous because everything was running so well, we were afraid our race would start too early. We didn't want that. We'd have liked it to start an hour later, but it all worked out. I had to work hard to pass the cars I did. There were a lot of good cars out there. It's more fun, though, winning from within the field," said Perley. "Vic keeps saying a monkey can drive these things and with this car I think he's right." Car owner Vic Miller commented, "We found that if we make just a subtle change in the wing for the day-time racing, then put it back in the feature, it runs great. We found that out in July. Basically, we don't run this car much and we don't change it when we come here. This is the same setup we won with last week at Star. Not a bolt's been touched. It's only run about four or five races since last year. We wrecked the other one at Lee and that will be out of commission for a while. We try not to run this car much because it runs so great here. It's an old car I built about six or seven years ago, but everyone likes it. Unfortunately, we didn't want to change this one around for tomorrow now that we wrecked the other one."

Joe Gosek led the initial laps while Hawthorne, NJ's Joey Payne chased Gosek down. Lou Cicconi, Scott Martel, Randy Ritskes and Chris Perley were soon to join the hunt. But Payne, who was making a run at Gosek, had his race end early on lap 10 when first smoke, then fire spewed from the 4 with a broken power rack the culprit. Payne was forced to exit with another dnf added to his recent string of bad luck.

Jamie Letcher's 53 and Willie Stutzman were also pitside on this lap. Gosek now had the amazing Perley right on his back end as the green waved and he tried to hold him off. Two laps later Perley went high and outside new leader Joe Gosek, and that's all she wrote.

Only two more cautions stopped the event as first Doug Boisvert's 66 brought out a quick yellow after he slowed on the track. Then Perley survived passing through some oil laid down by Gary Morton's blown motor on lap 20 which proved to be the last caution of the event, and cruised easily on to victory. Pat Abold exited the race on the same lap as Morton's demise with a badly missing motor. Bentley Warren and Denny Fisher came in for tires on this final caution. Current ISMA point leader, Russ Wood came by Ritskes, Cicconi and then Gosek by lap 31, to end up in second, but couldn't mount a charge on Perley who was a straightaway ahead by this time. Wood said later that he thought he might have been a little faster than the 11, but that without a caution, he couldn't catch Chris. Gosek finished third with Mike Ordway chomping on his tail while Cicconi finished fifth. Ritskes, Scott Martel, Dave Simard, Dan Soule and Dave McKnight were the top ten. Runner-up Wood said after the event, "We started 12th and got up to second. That's good. Chris was running good. I spent a lot of time with some lap cars that slowed me down some. Overall we're happy. A caution might have made a race of it, but who knows if Chris had anymore. My car was getting better and better, but Chris could have been holding some back too, so who knows. We're happy with second. We're in one piece for tomorrow."

Three heats and a consi for the ISMA supers ran relatively caution free except for a bone-jarring accident involving Willie Stutzman's 8 in the second prelim. Wins were taken by Russ Wood, Joe Gosek and Randy Ritskes with the consi taken by Ohio veteran Dave Shullick.

Heat 1: Russ Wood, Lou Cicconi, Denny Fisher, Dan Soule, Joey Moriarty, Andy Powell, Dave Shullick, Jack Smith, Don Little

Heat 2: Joe Gosek, Scott Martel, Mike Ordway, Joey Payne, Bentley Warren, Jamie Letcher, Dave Hosie, Bob Reis, Willie Stutzman

Heat 3: Randy Ritskes, Chris Perley, Joe Grunda, Dave Simard, Gary Morton, Pat Abold, Mike Douglas, Joe Petro, Justin Belfiore Consi: Dave Shullick Andy Powell, Mike Douglas, Jamie Letcher, Justin Belfiore, Joe Petro, Jack Smith, Dave Hosie, Don Little, Bob Reis, Willie Stutzman Stutzman used ISMA option after crashing in his heat.

FIFTH ANNUAL ISMA SUPER NATIONALS 50:
1.   Chris Perley(11) Amesbury, MA
2.   Russ Wood(29) Pelham, NH
3.   Joe Gosek(00), Oswego, NY
4.   Mike Ordway(26) Fremont, NH
5.   Lou Cicconi, Aston, PA
6.   Randy Ritskes(27), Athens, Ont.
7.   Scott Martel(14) Bradford, MA
8.   Dave Simard(37) Plaistow, NH
9.   Dan Soule(32) Clay, NY
10. Dave McKnight(94) Brampton, Ont.
11. Dave Shullick(33) Amherst, OH
12. Bentley Warren(77) Kennebunkport, ME
13. Mike Douglas(23), Auburn, NH
14. Joey Moriarty(51) Portsmouth, NH
15. Joe Petro(99), Windham, NH
16. Denny Fisher(81) Elyria, OH
17. Andy Powell(12) Fulton, NY
18. Joe Grunda(1) Sheffield Village, OH
19. Pat Abold(05) Pennellville, NY
20. Gary Morton(70) Stauffville, Ont.
21. Doug Boisvert(66) E. Andover, NH
22. Willie Stutzman(88) Elkhart, IN
23. Jamie Letcher(53) Kirkville, NY
24. Joey Payne(4) Hawthorne, NJ
25. Justin Belfiore.(01), Haverhill, MA