Brighton Speedway would play host to Canada's first ever Legends race on dirt. Jeff DeJong would be the lone car starting the race from the Dejong Motorsports stable, as Paul decided not to race. The team spent all day Saturday at the Ontario Legends race shop just outside of Brighton, Ont. preparing the car for the clay surfaced track. The windshield was swapped out for a screen, shocks and spring packages were changed over to a dirt set-up, and the repairs from the prvious nights racing were all completed before we headed to the track. Once at the track, pictures of hard slick corners were all but washed away. Six inches of mud covered the track at the beginning of the night, and hotlaps proved to be a mess. Fenders were caked with mud, and helmets were blurred with the clay. The first rounds of heats went off without any damage to the car, however, Jeff did spin out, thus finishing near the rear of the pack. The second round of heats saw Jeff get more comfortable and work his way to the front and put a challenge on for the lead. With a late fake caution (caution light came on momentarily, then went back out) Jeff dropped to 3rd. Jeff qualified in the 11th spot out of 19 cars. Once the feature started, the track came around and it was more like a tradional dirt track we were expecting. The 20 lap feature turned into about a 60 lap one with all of the cautions. Jeff spun the car out once by himself, and once to avoid another spinning car. Starting at the back twice, Jeff slowly made his way towards the front. After several crashes and a few cars knocked out of the race, Jeff found himself in the top 3. He had found the quick way around the track and it was working for him. After some late race cautions and having to pass a past Brighton Speedway track champion twice, Jeff managed to hold off all other drivers and take the win. Along with a large trophy, and the bragging rights to winning the first race on dirt in Canada, Jeff also took home $1000, the largest purse of the season. The teams next expected race is in Mosport on July 14th.
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Both Giant Tiger cars were back in Ottawa this week for the Wednesday night races.
In the first heat , Paul started deep in the field and quickly made his way to the lead. Right from the start Jeff's car didn't appear right and soon had to drop out with a failed clutch. Paul was leading with 2 laps to go when the number 77 car tried to make a pass for the lead and was hit by the #5 car which turned the 77 into Paul and they they locked bumpers. Paul had to start 2nd last with a green/white/checkers restart and in 2 laps managed to get back to third place.
In the 2nd heat ,Paul put on a show by quickly taking the lead and never giving it up to take the win. Jeff missed the 2nd heat while the crew were busy replacing the clutch in his #18 car so he could get back on track for the feature.
The feature went just like the 2nd heat for Paul , he quickly made his way to the front and then held off a few attempts by the 77 car and then put some distance between himself and second place and easily took the feature win. Jeff got tangled up with the 21 car early in the race and had to come in to the pits for some bodywork to be removed and then returned to the track for a solid 5th place finish considering the right rear rim and trailing arm were badly bent from the earlier contact.
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