5/30/2024
Cottage Grove Speedway
Thompson Scores Victory In Night One Of Marvin Smith Memorial Grove Classic; Augustine And Lancaster Also Pick Up Victories
Thompson Scores Victory In Night One Of Marvin Smith Memorial Grove Classic; Augustine And Lancaster Also Pick Up Victories
By Ben Deatherage
(Photo Courtesy of Jason Davenport Photography)
Cottage Grove, Oregon—The Marvin Smith Memorial Grove Classic, a significant race event that drew drivers and teams from across North America, took place at Cottage Grove Speedway on Memorial Day weekend. The action-packed weekend commenced on Saturday, May 25th, with the Todd’s Auto Body 360 Sprints, Late Models, and Junior divisions taking the spotlight.
The Todd’s Auto Body 360 main event was a testament to the fierce competition, with a major crash in turns one and two that took several cars out of the race. The intensity continued as Jake Haulot of Cotati, California, took the lead in the opening laps, only to be slowed by a caution flag on the second circuit.
As the race progressed, Harrisburg’s Tyler Thompson intensified his pursuit of the leader, Haulot. The two frontrunners found themselves navigating through traffic, creating a thrilling opportunity for Thompson to overtake Haulot on the twelfth lap.
The race remained green for some time, and Thompson developed a massive lead. He witnessed a brief scare when he briefly went off the top of turn one, but fortunately for his sake, his lead was so vast that when he got back in the racing groove, he was still in first place.
The race saw its final slowdown with a lap twenty-four caution. Once the race resumed, Thompson demonstrated his dominance, accelerating without any challenge to secure his second win of the season and his third overall in 2024.
Jacksonville’s Tanner Holmes made a late race move to finish second, with third going to Haulot. Defending race winner Colton Heath, from Marysville, Washington, got the final lock-in position by finishing fourth. Burlington, Washington traveler Greg Hamilton completed the top five, in fifth.
During the Late Model main event, Springfield’s Jake Mayden was rock fast in the Tim Morgan-fielded entry. Mayden seized the point on lap one and checked out from the rest of the field. Unfortunately, a caution on the seventh trip past the flag stand butting Nate Augustine right on his fuel cell.
Augustine had a run on Mayden by lap ten and performed the overtake. Things slowed down one last time on the seventeenth circuit, and when the field went back to green, Augustine would dominate the rest of the distance.
Mayden was second, while Ryan Ronning, from Springfield, was third. Bellfourtain’s Willie Sutton and Mike DeSilva, also from Springfield, were the rest of the Top 5 in fourth and fifth.
For the Junior ranks, Tylnee Mayden was the torch bearer early on. But the young lady from Springfield was run down and caught while dealing with traffic when Eugene teenager Rowen Lancaster passed her on lap eight on the inside of turn two.
Lancaster would be pressured numerous times on the final circuit but stayed ahead of all challengers to score the victory. It is his third consecutive triumph at the historic ¼-mile clay oval. Mayden was second at the wire, followed by Shane Dowty of Eugene in third.
Submitted By: Ben Deatherage
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