Story by: Andy Marquis ~ [email protected]

Manassas, VA(September 22, 2011) — Dustin Storm drove through the field late in the race to recapture the lead after pitting for a flat tire in the closing stages of Saturday night’s ODS Big One. However, since the tire that was changed had not seen a minimum number of laps in race condition, Storm was disqualified and the win was handed to Doug Liberman.

“I’m at a loss for words,” Liberman said in his lone victory lane interview exclusively with RACE22.com. “I knew we had a good car, I knew we had everything on the car right. To get a win through a DQ, it is what it is. We had the right stuff on there and apparently they didn’t. We ran a good race. That’s all we can ask for, leave it up to the officials and let them do their deal.”

David Polenz won the 2011 Old Dominion Speedway track championship. It was an emotional victory for Polenz after his sponsor representative, Joe Murphy, suffered a stroke earlier this year and is still recovering.

“We came on there with the last two races,” Polenz said. “The first race since Joe had his stroke. Very unfortunate situation and it brings me to tears. I’m beside myself; I can say I’m a NASCAR champion now. It’s cool.”

Dustin Storm was credited with a win as, in Old Dominion Speedway fashion, the race was split in half with points bring awarded for both halves and the winning purse only being awarded in the second half of the race. The caution for the halfway point came on lap 93 (of the 200 lap race).

“The car was unbelievably good,” Storm said. “We finally hit on something we’ve been looking forward to all year. The car was flawless from start to finish.”

“They had a flat and needed to change the tire,” Old Dominion Speedway race director Gary Gore said. “The tire had not previously been in a race, which is what is required, with a minimum number of laps on it. That’s the whole deal.”

Section 10.8.12 of the ODS rulebook states, “Any car found with the wrong tires after a race will be immediately disqualified and the driver penalized 50 points.” Section 10.8.7 states, “Teams must race on the same tires that are used for qualifying.” However, during the driver’s meeting, drivers were told they could change a tire during the race if, and only if, they had a flat and that they could change only that one tire and that the tire had to be used. Sam Beaty argued that teams were told the tire had to have laps on it but was never told that those laps had to be in race condition.

Mike Darne was the odds on favorite entering the race. Darne had won every big race at Old Dominion this season (and last season) prior to the start of the race, but his night took a turn for the worse on the first turn of the race. He would get collected in an accident with Mike Southard and Franklin Butler.

“(Butler) drove right beside of me and put me in the fence,” Darne said. “We had the best car in practice, and we had the best car in qualifying. It’s just unfortunate. We’ve got these inverts that they have here and stuff can happen. The bad part is I know we had the car to beat tonight and we never got to show it. It’s disappointing.”

Darne did clarify that he did not think the contact with Butler was intentional. Butler was a team car to Dustin Storm and the incident raised eyebrows. Storm’s team said it was unfortunate that Darne wrecked because they felt it would’ve been a good race between the two. Darne felt he could’ve driven away with it.

The race produced cautions plenty of times as Alex Gilmore had his issues a couple times as did Mike Watson and Sunny Hobbs. Hobbs struggled to get the handle of her car in the early stages and went many laps down.

One of the more spectacular moments occurred when Paul Green, who had a fast car all weekend, wrecked with some assistance from Dave Daniels who was running three laps down at the time of contact. Paul Green tried to save the car but ended up slamming the backstretch outside guardrail head-on. Green was okay, but several members of his crew were miffed. During the extended red flag period to clean up the damage from the wreck, a couple of Green’s members walked to the turn two viewing area and applauded Daniels for his actions.

The leaders had a couple close calls throughout the night. First, Alex Gilmore and Max Smith tangled right in front of the leaders. Then, as Hobbs was going a lap down and struggling with the handle of her car, the leaders had to take evasive action to avoid running in to her. Alex Gilmore also went off course during the race directly in front of the leaders. He was able to get back on the track with no harm caused and the race remained green.

The red flag also came out earlier in the race (at lap 53) when Mike Watson and Richard Storm were involved in a wreck off turn two. All in all, the yellow flag flew eight times during the 200 lap race.

Official Results:
1 Doug Liberman
2 Franklin Butler
3 Davey Callihan
4 David Polenz
5 Robert Bruce
6 Mike Watson
7 Dustin Storm
8 Mark Miller
9 Richard Storm
10 Rusty Poland
11 Sunny Hobbs
12 Max Smith
13 Les Miranda
14 Dave Daniels
15 Paul Green
16 Steve Jenkins
17 Willard Lawrence
18 Mike Diaz
19 Mark Cropp
20 Mike Darne
21 Mike Southard
22 Billy Ingle (DNS)