Ron VanEs Completes Successful Western Swing

Performance Helps Raise Position in Standings

By Ken Spencer

Smithville, Ontario’s Ron VanEs completed a successful trip west by running to an impressive tenth-place finish in Saturday’s 300-lap Super Series race at Sun Valley Speedway north of Vernon, BC.

The sophomore driver of the Star Van Systems/All Cover Systems Monte Carlo finished sixth in Friday’s 100-lap qualifier then worked his way into the top-ten in Saturday’s 300-lap feature by maintaining a steady pace throughout the marathon event. He started 11th in the 28-car field but went down a lap early when lapped cars created some problems and eventual dropped a second lap late in the race.

Coupled with his previous week’s performance in Calgary where he finished ninth in the MOPAR 300 and eighth in his 100-lap qualifier, the second year Super Series competitor has now climbed (unofficially) into 14th spot in the points’ standings. He was 21st in the points’ race when the Super Series headed west following race #5 in Toronto on July 10th.

Ron now returns to Ontario circles to finish the five remaining races on the CASCAR schedule and hopefully garner enough points to move up another spot or two in the tightening race for tenth spot in the national points. Action resumes this Saturday at Mosport Speedway north of Bowmanville.

DJ Kennington of St. Thomas won Saturday’s main event at Sun Valley passing Glencoe’s Brad Graham with just three laps remaining.

The victory for Kennington was his third in his last three starts beginning last week in Calgary and this past week’s qualifier at Sn Valley

Series point’s leader Don Thomson of Hamilton finished third with Peter Gibbons of Stouffville in fourth and Ron Beauchamp of Windsor fifth. Dave Whitlock, Doug Brown, JR Fitzpatrick and Kevin Dowler also finished ahead of VanEs in a race that was slowed five times (53 laps) for cautions.