It was a thrilling feature go last Saturday night here at the Oswego Speedway and young Fulton, New York ace Eddie Bellinger Jr. did his thing just fine as he mastered a fine 24 car field to grab this third feature victory of the 1977 season. The second generation racing veteran was pressured almost all the way in the 45 lapper, but at the finish had everyting under control to garner the $1,500 first place prize.
Starting from his pole position berth, Kirkville's Mark Letcher held the early lead in Hermie Graf's car 15. Letcher stayed out front for five circuits before hard charging Chuck Ciprich took over the lead in the Buckner car 36. Ciprich came from deep in the pack and was driving extremely well enroute to the front. Eddie Bellinger was only a few steps behind Chuck, and he moved into second one lap later.
Following a restart on lap 7, Bellinger made a quick move on Ciprich. When the green flag fell, Eddie dove underneath the 36 and outran Chuck into the first turn to take the lead away. Chuck wasn't about to give up and he stayed right there on Eddie's back bumper putting pressure on every lap. Along came high point man Kemp Dates with the number 28 and he made it a three car battle for the lead. Shortly thereafter, Warren Coniam broke free of traffic and he too came on like gang busters and suddenly we had a four car battle for the lead. Bellinger continually made the right moves to stay in front.
However, two spins proved extremely costly to two of the front runners. First off, in the heat of battle, Ciprich looped the 36 between the third and fourth turns. He was pushed into the pits where his crew worked several minutes on the car thus putting him several laps down. A few laps later, it was Coniam looping the number 6 coming out of the fourth turn. He did a fine job keeping it off the wall and restarted in the rear of the field.
On the restart, it was Bellinger holding off Dates and now Steve Gioia moved into the picture and started challenging. The top three cars 02-28-9 ran together lap after lap. Towards the end of the race, however, Bellinger started building up a small lead over Dates. Dates as well, had a small cushion on Gioia. In the meantime, Coniam was trying to make up for lost ground as well as Gary Allbritain. Gary had pitted with the Flyin' 5 and restarted in the rear and came up to 4th when engine problems set in and he was forced to sit out the rest of the night. When Gary pitted, this moved Coniam up another spot and actually at the latter part of the race, Coniam was closing in on the top three cars. But there just wasn't enough laps left.
Eddie Bellinger charged home the big winner with his Bellinger Automotive car 02. He drove a fine race from start to finish and made no mistakes at all. Finishing second was Kemp Dates in the 28 and his second place finish (coupled with Shampine's bad luck) vaulted him into a fairly good lead in the 1977 Oswego Point race. Third spot went to Steve Gioia in the family owned car number 9. It was Warren Coniam coming home fourth with the Dave McKnight car 6. Rounding out the top five was Brian Herb in the number 11 who made some mighty fine moves over the last few laps of the race to earn that finishing spot.
Other feature finishers in order were: Jim Thompson 18, Joe Paeno 06, Dick Batchelder 21, Tommy Leeson 97, Norm Mackereth 40, Jim Muldoon 37, Dave Morton 70, Mark Letcher 15, John Michaels 32, Kevin Lyons 19, Russ Gray 27, Brad Lichty 84, Doug Syer 52, Chuck Ciprich 36, Gary Allbritain 5, Mike Rizzo 34, Sam Carista 30, Del Meeks 2, and Dan Dennie 85.