By JIMMY TRODGLEN

The Leaf-Chronicle

Even when there’s no UMP DIRTcar Summer National race, Dennis Erb and Wes 

Steidingar always try to find a track to unload their late model cars.

“We’ve run the whole Summer Nationals together in the last two years,” 

Steidingar said. “When there’s not much going on anywhere else, we run locally 

together a lot. We’ve run a lot of laps together.”  

Erb and Steidingar finished one and two, respectively, in last season’s points 

standings, and drove onto the Clarksville StormPay.com Speedway complex on 

Saturday in the identical spot.

Once the dust settled on Saturday’s 40 lap feature race, their positions didn’t 

change.

Starting from the pole, Erb enjoyed 28 straight laps of green flag racing, and 

had perfect restarts after two cautions in the final 12 laps to take first and 

win the $10,000 cash prize.

“It felt pretty good. We got out front and rolled around there,” Erb said. “We 

got into some traffic and worked through that pretty well. We just had to 

concentrate and keep everybody behind me.”

Rodney Melvin finished third, followed by Kevin Claycomb and Terry English. 

Clarksville regular Clayton Miller, who started second, finished sixth.

It wasn’t the first time Erb has run well on Clarksville’s small oval track. He 

won a Northern All-Star race at the dirt track.

“I’ve been up front here in some of the Summer National races, and we finished 

third in a spring race here, so we’ve gotten around here pretty good,” Erb said. 

“It’s always good to come here and run well.”

Steidingar started third, and his car had the muscle to overtake Erb, but the 

opportunity never presented itself.

“I’m always here to win, but we’ll take a second,” Steidingar said. “Second is 

the next best thing and Dennis had a good car. We were just as good, but it was 

a matter of track position tonight — who started in front of whom.”

Before the race went green, one car spun coming out of Turn 4 to force a caution 

and delay the race’s start. Once the event went green, 28 laps clicked off 

before the next caution came out.

“I would’ve liked to have seen it gone non-stop (green flag laps),”

 Erb said. 

“Every time you get a caution like that the tires cool down, and it changes the 

car a little bit and takes it a little while for it to get going sometimes. It 

all worked out there.”

It only took a couple of laps after the race’s first restart for the field to 

spread out around the track, creating a traffic jam of lap cars for Erb and 

Steidingar to maneuver through.

“We went through that real carefully and tried to get through there and not make 

a mistake,” Erb said. “I knew he (Steidingar) was behind me, and he runs good. 

We had to keep it going.”

n n n

Brown wins third open wheel feature

Gregg Brown’s obligation to his full-time job doesn’t allow him to compete every 

Saturday, preventing him from contending for a points championship. However, the 

Burns native flexed his muscles in the the open wheel event on Saturday, taking 

the checkered flag ahead of Miller and Michael Neighbors.

“I come and have fun and race when I can, but I’m not an every weekender,” said 

Brown, who works for Air Tech in technical products support. “I do a little 

traveling and some of my traveling gets me out of town and I can’t be here every 

week.”

Even with a handful of absences from the track, Brown is still fifth in the 

points standing, and his victory was the third this season.

“I had a pretty good car tonight,” said Brown, who started from the pole and won 

the dash. “I had a good starting spot, and when a track is black and slick like 

this, starting up front sure is a big advantage. I was lucky to get out front 

and get through lap traffic and managed to win it.”

The start of the open wheel feature had an ominous start for Brown, who was 

bumped from behind and spun out.

“The first start was a little eventful,” said Brown, referring to a wreck that 

happened before the field had crossed the start-finish line on the first lap. “I 

didn’t get the lead and got bumped in the rear end down here in Turns 1 and 2 

and got turned around. Luckily we got a restart and I got put back up front and 

I did a little better on the restart the second time.”

Brown also had to contend with a dust cloud after a wreck that obscured vision 

coming out of Turn 4.

“The first time I slowed down a lot because I wasn’t sure if there was a car 

there or not,” Brown said. “Then after the first time creeping through there, 

you have to say, ‘there’s nothing there,’ and you go on. It’s very difficult to 

see and it took a lap or two to get out of the way and it cleared up. The rest 

of it (race) was kind of uneventful.”

n n n

Other winners from Saturday night included Justin Rapp (Outlaw Mini Sprint), 

Crate Late Model=20(Caleb Ashby), Pro Street (Mike Hodges), Josh Taylor (Street) 

and Nick Alexander (Mini Mod).

Jimmy Trodglen is sports editor of The Leaf-Chronicle and can be reached by 

e-mail at jimmytrodglen@theleafchronicle.com or by phone at 245-0261.