Competition Results              Qualifying Score

That’s what those in attendance on Friday night at Evergreen Speedway witnessed as EvergreenDrift was in action for Round 2 of their scheduled 4 round season.Right out of the box drivers were getting up close and personal with the wall as they came off the bank. Kelly Thorpe was the first victim as he clipped the wall with his left rear bumper, leaving a battle scar as a reminder of how challenging Evergreen Speedway can be. He wasn’t the only one who had troubles, several cars found their way over the bank with one getting stuck on a temporary jump that had been built for the Super Moto competition. That was just the practice round!

As we rolled into qualifying the crowd was on their feet cheering as the drivers stepped up their game. Victor Moore ran his usual consistent lines with severe angle, high speed and hitting the clipping points with regularity. Matt McCoy made sure everyone knew he had returned with a cloud of smoke that any infantry unit would have been able to hide behind on a battlefield. The real show stopper came from Matt Gehr, an early initiation into the bank gave us all a clue that this was about to be a special run, he immediately took the highest line a car could take on the bank, or so we thought. About halfway through the bank he went into Panic mode and dropped the rears off the lip and into the dirt and held that the rest of the way through the bank. The judges booth along with the crowded erupted with excitement as we all knew we had just seen a run for the ages, perhaps the best single run I have personally witnessed at an vergreenDrift event.

As we whittled the field down the action got more intense. We entered the top 16 not knowing what these drivers could do to top what we had just witnessed. Tandems would be the answer to that question, per the rules any drivers equipped with a cage and are ok’d to tandem by the officials must tandem in the comp if they are paired against another tandem driver. And as we seeded the drivers we had a couple of those opportunities.

It got started with top qualifier Matt Gehr going up against Jordan Peterson, most would assume that after the qualifying runs Matt pulled off he had a huge advantage. That is the problem with assuming. Jordan Peterson was able to pull off the upset as the 16th seeded driver was able to take out Matt Gehr who had a spin in one of his runs. The best battle in the round came when Roland Gallagher was paired up against Gleb Antanov. Roland had pressure on Gleb all the while he was following but, Gleb stayed in it and did not make it easy for Roland but in the end it would be Roland advancing by a slim margin.

The night continued into the Round of 8 where Camp Canada began to shine as Trent Stromkins who had been silently putting together some solid runs really started to come to life and was able to win his battle and get to the Final Four. The highlight of this round came in the pairing of Ricky Henderson vs Roland Gallagher. Nothing had been easy for Roland on this night and it wasn’t going to get easy now as he was up against the power that Ricky’s big block was throwing down. It was a great battle as both runs were very close, but in the end it was Roland that overcame the challenge that a very improved Ricky Henderson gave to him.

Now it was time to crown the nights winner as the Final Four came to the line for their runs. First would be a battle of titans at Evergreen Speedway as Victor Moore was set to tandem against Matt McCoy. Neither would dissapoint the crowd in what proved to be the closest battle of the night. By the slimmest of margins the judges gave the nod to Matt McCoy. Next up would be Roland Gallagher and Trent Stromkins, Camp Canada was full of pride as their green dickies clad cohort knocked of Roland and advanced to the final.

In the third place run it was Victor against Roland and Victor was victorious as he made his second trip to the podium this year.

Matt McCoy just had one more driver to take care of in order to make his return complete, that driver would be Trent Stromkins. As they both initiated the bank all knew this was going to be tight. Door to door action and a lot of smoke was the norm for both runs. In the end it was Matt McCoy narrowly winning the battle and his spot on top of Victory Stage.

The mission was complete for Matt as he made a triumphant return. Matt was asked about what it felt liked to be on the track again after some hardship, “It definitely feels good and a night like this really helps” Matt stated this as he held the trophy high and the crowd gave a large ovation to all of the competitors.