Brian Campbell earned his second series
victory of the season at Columbus and produced his second consecutive
top-five finish. Campbell finished just 0.225 seconds ahead of Scott
Hantz.
For the fourth occasion in the previous five
CRA events at Columbus, Scott Hantz earned a podium finish with
crossing the finish line in second position. Hantz was running in the
fourth position on lap 95 when leader Tyler Nuckles and second running
John VanDoorn made contact forcing both drivers to restart on the tail
of the lead lap. That moved Hantz to second behind Campbell. The two
battled nose to tail over the final laps with Hantz in the runner-up
spot at the checkered flag.
"With the sun going down and then the red
flag that car just wouldn’t fire on restarts. After the sun went down
and it cooled down the car was decent again. I lost a couple spots by
that point and then couldn’t get around Brian (Campbell) at the end
after the leaders got together. Second is not bad. Would have liked to
win, but there is always next time," said Scott Hantz.
Robbie Pyle rallied from an early race
accident with Nick Gullatta while battling for fifth position to cross
the finish line in third position. With less than 25 laps remaining
Pyle got around Tommy St. John to secure his podium finish. Gullatta
followed his fourth place run at Toledo with a ninth at Columbus and
earned the Perfect Circle RaceCars Rookie of the Race award.
Early in the event Tommy St. John had one of
the quickest cars moving up to third around Brian Campbell. The driver
of the No. 14 Welch & Wilson Motorsports Chevrolet finished in fourth
spot.
"Our car got tighter and tighter on the long
runs. The first four or five laps it was good and then just became
hard to turn. I will take a fourth-place finish. We tested last week
and we were off and to finish fourth is great for our team," said
Tommy St. John.
Jim Crabtree Jr. rounded out the top-five
finishers with moving up from the 10th starting position to
collect his third top-10 performance of the season.
"The car was pretty tight in the middle of
the corner and I had to give up a lot to keep it on the bottom. I’m
pretty happy to finish in fifth spot and we didn’t get a scratch on
the car," said Jim Crabtree Jr.