Motor SportsFriday, August 24, 2007 11:49 PM CDT

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Consistency fuels Friedman’s title run at Fairbury Speedway

By Douglas Hamm
dhamm@pantagraph.com

Locked in a three-way dogfight for the track title on the final night of points racing, Mother Nature threw Daren Friedman a nasty curveball last weekend at Fairbury American Legion Speedway.

“It had rained right before the races started and I’m usually not very good at the mud racing so I was really nervous all night long,” Friedman said.

The 28-year-old late model driver from Forrest solved the slick conditions and overcame a ninth-place starting position in the feature to place second and edge Bloomington’s Junior Shickel by eight points for his first championship.

Friedman entered the final race four points behind Shickel and six behind Fairbury’s Scott Bull. His chances didn’t look good early.

“There was a yellow flag 10 laps into it and Junior Shickel had just passed me and I saw Scott Bull up front,” Friedman said. “I was like, ‘This deal is over for me.’ But we took off from that caution. It was like a cannon or something. It was unbelievable.”

Consistency has been the key for Friedman, who also stands fourth in the late model standings at Farmer City Raceway. Friedman has only one feature win at each track, but he has rarely fallen out of the top five.

“We didn’t win a lot but even if we started from the back we always seemed to climb our way to the front,” Friedman said. “We had no failures or anything to take us out of races.

“Everything we did this year came together. We stumbled across some things that worked really well.”

Experience also paid off for the fourth-year driver.

“A lot of it is just getting some seat time,” Friedman said. “We race maybe 30 times a year. When you’re talking about all these other guys racing 50 times, it’s tough to compete against them.”

Friedman and Shickel were followed by Bull, El Paso’s Joe Harlan and Towanda’s Donny Walden in one of the closest late model championship battles ever at Fairbury.

“Fairbury is the toughest race track around. Anybody will tell you that,” Friedman said.

“If you ask the guys on the traveling series, they always say Fairbury is the best track to come to because they have the best locals (drivers).”

Elsewhere at Fairbury, Dave Porth of Gardner defended his title in the modified division. Dwight’s Joel Funk edged Watseka’s Dave Rudesill for the sportsman championship.

Neville brothers streaking

Brothers Derek and Nick Neville of Mackinaw each posted their second straight top-10 finishes in the ASA Late Model Series at last weekend’s Wolverine 100 at Dixie Motor Speedway in Birch Run, Mich.

Nick placed fourth and Derek was sixth behind race winner Brian Campbell of Wyoming, Mich.

Derek sits third in the Northern Division points standings while Nick is seventh.

Dick wins at Springfield

Timmy Dick of Monticello, the son of Bloomington sportsman driver Darrell Dick, won the Wynn’s Sportsman Nationals Sunday at the Illinois State Fairgrounds’ Springfield Mile.

The 19-year-old Dick, in his first full season of racing, rallied from fifth place to become the youngest driver to win the 20-lap event.

See Scoreboard for points standings

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