Point Race Tightens With Ray Victory

Sun Prairie, Wis., July 17, 2005--Davey Ray scored a wire-to-wire victory capturing the 25-lap Badger/Gateway Midget Series co-sanctioned feature Sunday Night at Angell Park Speedway. The win was Ray's second of the season and pulled the top four drivers in the Badger standings to within 61 points.
Ray jumped into the lead from the outside front row, and began increasing his lead each lap over the field. Ray enjoyed a two second advantage over Brandon Waelti on the 10th lap. Ray began lapping the back of the field on the 13th lap. 
Two laps later the lapped car of Kenny Adams Jr. spun, and collected the third and fourth place cars of Brad Kuhn, and Scott Hatton. Kuhn flipped after contact with Adams escaping injury. Both Kuhn, and Hatton were sidelined from the incident which also involved Ryan Pace.
Ray again pulled away from the field, while a great battle for positions in the top five was taking place behind him. The caution appeared with three laps remaining for a spun car. On the restart Ray driving the RAJO-Wilke-PAK Stealth/Sesco-Mopar entry went unchallenged to the victory while Mike Hess passed two cars in a half lap to take second at the finish, followed by Chad DeSelle, Michael Pickens, and Waelti. Steve Buckwalter escaped injury in a wild flip as he took the checkered flag on the front stretch.
Series point leader Danny Stratton suffered engine problems in his heat race, and did not start the feature and now leads Hatton by 12 points with Waelti an additional 26 points behind, and Ray trails by 61 points heading into the series event on July 24 at the facility.