Canton (Ill.) sprint car driver Chris Windom has had his fair share of bad luck in 2008, but he atoned for what he described as a rather frustrating season by holding off Lincoln’s Dave Darland to take the checkered flag Sunday night in the Vince Osman Classic at the Kokomo Speedway.

Windom lined up outside the front row for the 25-lap A-main and quickly shot to the lead until Darland rode the cushion to snag the point on the fifth lap. From there the four-time USAC National champion looked to have things well in hand until Cole Whitt brought out a yellow flag on the 14th lap.

Three laps later Windom used a narrow slide job coming off turn four to take a lead he wouldn’t relinquish the remainder of the event.

“I knew I screwed up down there early on and let Dave get by me,” said Windom. “I just knew the car was good enough, so when I got the chance I took it and just got by Dave down in turn four.”

To beat the third-winningest sprint car driver in the tracks storied history, meant a lot to the soft-spoken Windom.

“To beat [Darland] here is special,” Windom noted. “I knew before we started that I was going to have to deal with him sooner or later. He was good all night, but so were a lot of the other cars, but to beat him at a track where he has had so much success makes this one pretty big.”

Darland was unable to muster a late challenge after attempting one last slide job in the closing laps and had to settle for second. Thomas Meseraull continued his solid season by taking third with Brady Bacon notching fourth aboard his Kasey Kahne Racing/Mopar No. 9. Shane Cottle was fifth in his first ride aboard the Roger Crites-owned/J&J; Electric/Claxton Engines/Crites Excavating No. 82G usually piloted by Bart Grider.

Casey Shuman was sixth followed in the top-10 by Critter Malone, Anthony Peterman, Dustin Smith and Ron Dennis. Jon Stanbrough finished 13th after starting at the tail of the field while seven-time feature winner at the track and 11-time winner overall Hunter Schuerenberg was 14th after starting outside the 10th row. Schuerenberg had worked his way all the way to fourth until jumping the cushion and making contact with the turn two wall in the final three laps. Tracy Hines was 15th in Lynn Reid’s Kokomo Honda/Freelance Lettering No. 2 and Kokomo’s Corey Smith was 16th.

Scotty Weir finished 19th after flipping his Edison Motorsports/Crume-Evans Insurance/Allen’s Body Shop/Chalk Chassis No. 10E very hard on the 15th lap. Despite his bad night, he still managed to wrap up his first Kokomo track championship.

“All in all it was a pretty good year,” said Weir of his championship and the 11th overall for the Edison team. “But, it seems like this team wins the title every year so I’m just the guy fortunate enough to be driving the car. I just wish we could have won more races than we did, but we did lead a lot of laps this year and were in position to win quite a few races. We just didn’t win for one reason or another.”

After spending a season driving for the famed Crosno Race team on the West Coast and finishing high in the USAC/CRA points chase, Weir found capturing the Kokomo title pretty special.

“[On the West Coast] there are typically only four or five cars that are competitive,” Weir said. “Here in Indiana, there are 15 cars or more capable of winning at whatever track you go to, especially here at Kokomo. Week in and week out it seems like this track has the best drivers around show up each week. The year I spent out West I feel like it just set me back a year.”

Cole Whitt, Weir, Stanbrough and Meseraul each took heat race wins as 36 cars were on hand for the regular season finale. Bacon and Malone each won in a pair of B-main events. 

Thunder Cars

Tony Bowman made it 10 straight feature wins in the Thunder Car division, but still came up short in the points battle as Allen Davis captured his first career track title.

Bowman and Davis swapped the lead back and forth in the opening laps before Bowman took the lead that he wouldn’t surrender in waltzing to yet another feature victory. Davis was second while Paul Whitacre nosed out Eric Hunter for third. Peru’s Marvin Uitts turned in an outstanding drive to round out the top five. Gerald Armfield, Tim Huffman, Brandon Nutter, Skid Moudy and Junior Williams followed.

For Davis, the track title was special as he joined his father, Jim Davis, Jr. as a track champion.

“Dad won six track championships and this is my first,” said the younger Davis. “I’ve been doing this for 15 years. This is finally my first title and it feels pretty good. The key thing is that I stayed pretty consistent all season. I didn’t win a lot of races like [Bowman], but my worst finish all season long was a fifth. Tony’s (Bowman) been pretty unbeatable all season, but tonight I made him work hard to win this one —at least early on.”

Davis, Bowman and Eric Hunter won their respective heats. 

Street Stocks 

The tightest title battle heading into the finale was in the Street Stock division as only 17 points separated first through third as Glen Gamblin was vying for his seventh Kokomo track title and ninth overall in his storied career.

Heading into the race, the Kokomo standout had 836 points while David Hurst had 825 and defending series champ Andre Missig had 819. Missig saw his hopes dashed in his heat race when he flipped his Grand Slam Pub No. 18M hard in a crash that saw his night as well as his title hopes fall by the wayside.

In the feature, Hurst needed to finish eight spots ahead of Gamblin to have any shot at his first championship at the local oval. Hurst did what he had to do, taking the lead from Ryan Hines on the second lap then holding on the remaining 13 circuits en route to the victory. Gamblin drove a steady race, finishing third behind Hurst and Hines. Tristan Ramseyer took fourth and Arnie Prater fifth.

“This championship is probably the most special of all,” said a beaming Gamblin. “Considering the quality of cars that come here each week and how fast they all are it’s a pretty big accomplishment.”

After battling in the early going with his son, Josh, Gamblin realized that he needed to pick up the pace to make sure he stayed out of any type of trouble that might ruin his title hopes.

“When Josh and I were out there with him on the bottom and me up top, that was a pretty special deal,” noted the Delphi Electronics employee. “But then I realized that I had better pick it up so I could stay out of any type of trouble that might ruin my chances.

“It’s hard to imagine that we could win this championship when the car that we raced all year was getting ready to be scrapped. Greg Peirson and Harold Hunter used to have this car and it was just sitting in a bunch of weeds getting ready to go to the scrap yard when Jeremy Crow saw it and told me about it. I bought that car for $200 but there were a lot of late nights spent on that car to get it where it is today. Believe me, the older I get and with my full-time job, it made those night harder than it used to be.”