BELGRADE, Mont. – Logan Forler took one more big step toward winning a championship Friday night, winning the Big Sky Supernationals at Gallatin Speedway in ASCS Frontier Region sprint car competition.
Forler led all 20 laps of the feature that was shortened due to weather concerns. In a non-stop race, Forler was never threatened and won by nearly a half lap aboard his family’s No. 2L Fischer-powered Maxim. It was the Boise, Idaho driver’s series leading fifth win of the season, and with it he increased his lead over Meridian, Idaho’s Tyler Driever to 64 points with one race remaining.
The track endured a brief rain delay earlier just before the ASCS Frontier heat races were to begin. After the track was quickly worked back into racing condition both heat races were immediately run. With more rain in the area, track and ASCS officials elected to rush the program and get the cars back out on the race track to run their main event as quickly as possible. Perhaps less than 15 minutes after the completion of the second heat race, cars were rolling on the track for the feature. They were fortunate to get it in as radar showed more rain narrowly missing the track as the race happened.
To speed things up, ASCS officials decided to not tally heat race passing points and skip the redraw to save time, instead quickly lining up the smaller than usual field by how they finished their heat races, with Heat 1 on the inside and Heat 2 on the outside. This put Forler, the winner of Heat 1, on the pole.
James Setters of Spirit Lake, Idaho won the second heat race and started outside Forler for the main event. He immediately fell back to fourth place on the initial start, but in the opening laps moved past both Trever Kirkland and Phil Dietz to get back up to the second position. Setters was never able to get close to Forler, but still earned his best ASCS Frontier Region finish of his career aboard his family’s No. 2J Borillo-powered Helix.
The five-time champion Dietz of Laurel, Montana finished third aboard his No. 72 Maxim. Kirkland finished fourth ahead Tyler Driever and Kory Wermling. Finishing one spot ahead of Wermling, Driever increased the gap between the two for second place in the standings to 15 tallies.
The ASCS Frontier Region completes its 2021 season Saturday at Big Sky Speedway outside Billings, Montana. Along with the races is the Mile 16 Musicfest, as the band Repeat Offenders will be playing both before and after the races. In racing action, Forler will look to wrap up his first ASCS Frontier Region championship.
More information on the Frontier Region of the American Sprint Car Series, as well as the Lucas Oil ASCS National Tour and other ASCS regional tours, can be found online at www.ascsracing.com. Stagg Motor Sports, the promoting company of the ASCS Frontier Region, can be found at www.staggmotorsports.com.
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American Sprint Car Series – Frontier Region
Big Sky Supernationals
Gallatin Speedway
Belgrade, MT
September 10, 2021
UNOFFICIAL RESULTS
9 cars
Heat 1 (6 laps, time): 1. 2L Logan Forler, 2. 72 Phil Dietz, 3. 38b Bryan Brown, 4. 81 Darren Smith, DNS – 2x Mike Manwill (scratch for evening with engine issue).
Heat 2 (6 laps, time): 1. 2J James Setters, 2. 37 Trever Kirkland, 3. 33t Tyler Driever, 4. 9k Kory Wermling.
Feature (20 laps, time): 1. 2L Logan Forler, 2. 2J James Setters, 3. 72 Phil Dietz, 4. 37 Trever Kirkland, 5. 33t Tyler Driever, 6. 9k Kory Wermling, 7. 38b Bryan Brown, 8. 81 Darren Smith.
