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Finishing the job

The No. 10 Sprint car of Sarver's Carl Bowser cruised to victory Friday night at Lernerville Speedway.
Bowser bounces back from misfortune last week to find victory at Lernerville

BUFFALO TWP — Nothing broke on Carl Bowser's No. 10 Sprint car this time.

The Sarver driver has nothing to fix with his race program, either.

Bowser started Friday night's Sprint feature on the pole and cruised to victory in a 25-lap race that had no restarts at Lernerville Speedway.

Bowser won his first feature of the season July 12 and was headed back to victory lane last week when his power steering broke with three laps remaining.

“It's a race we should have won,” Bowser said. “I mean, we were fast. But we were fast again tonight and got the job done.

“My confidence is way up right now. I was racing with no confidence last year.”

Eric Williams of Greenville finished a distant se ond while Renfrew's Gary Rankin — driving the Brent Matus No. 33 — took third.

“I normally don't like starting up front,” Bowser admitted.”I'd rather start third or fourth because it takes some of the pressure off.

“There was no coasting tonight. I pushed it hard all the way. This car is great. We're there.”

Bowser has nine career Sprint feature wins at Lernerville.

In other features:

• Russell King of Bristol, Ohio, claimed his first Fab Four Late Model win of the campaign, starting up front and surviving see-saw racing with Garrett Krummert in the first few laps and points leader Alex Ferree over the final few laps.

“There were slide jobs going on all over the place,” King said. “That was a blast tonight. It may have been the most fun I've had racing on a dirt track.”

King said Ferree had the faster car and that “the outside lane saved us.”

“I tried coming down toward the middle, but quickly figured out I'd better stay up top and take my chances with that small cushion,” King said.

Saxonburg's Ferree wound up second after starting from the fifth position.

“I could have used a bit of a wider track than we had tonight,” Ferree said. “But this wasn't bad. That was a good race.”

Ferree occasionally surged the nose of his car ahead of King coming off Turn 2, but couldn't hold him off. Krummert started on the pole, but went too high off Turn 4 on the 19th lap and faded from contention.

• Leechburg's Brian Swartzlander extended his track record win total in Modifieds by claiming his 80th Lernerville victory and third this season.

Starting from the fourth starting spot, Swartzlander took the lead from pole-sitter Rex King Sr. on Turn 2 of the fifth lap and never gave it up. Points leader Mat Williamson started alongside Swartzlander in the second row, but couldn't overtake him.

“Something was going on with the motor in my car toward the end there. I hope it's OK,” Swartzlander said. “This is our best car, our fastest car, but it hasn't been at 100 percent yet and that's getting frustrating.

“It runs great in the garage. We get to the track, something goes wrong. When we do get it straightened out, it's going to be very good.”

Williamson finished second, giving the young driver from St. Catharines, Ontario, his eighth top-two finish here this season.

“Brian was better than me tonight,” Williamson said. “We won our heat race and didn't think the track would change that much, so we didn't mess with the set-up.

“The track slickened up more than we anticipated. We lost this race in the pits tonight.”

• Corey McPherson won his track-high sixth feature of the campaign in Sportsman Stocks. He started on the pole, overtook Joe Kelley for the lead and held off rival AJ Flick for the checkered flag.

Flick's points lead over McPherson was reduced from 15 to 10 Friday night.

Notes: There were 83 cars in the pits. ... Veteran Sprint driver Rod George won his first heat race of the season. Williams won the other Sprint heat, his first victory as well. ... McPherson picked up his seventh heat race win of the year, tying Flick for Lernerville's overall lead in that category.

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