Ross Meeuwsen loses Chet, but wins Late Model championship at Berlin Raceway
By Steve Kaminski The Grand Rapids Press
September 26, 2009, 11:55PM
MARNE -- Late Model driver Ross Meeuwsen of Zeeland couldn’t have had a worse day, and yet, it couldn’t have been more perfect.Meeuwsen wrapped up his second consecutive track championship by three points over Terry VanHaitsma of Hudsonville, even though VanHaitsma won Saturday night’s Chet, a 100-lap feature race which served as the division’s season finale. Meeuwsen needed to finish third to stave off VanHaitsma, and he beat Chris Anthony to the stripe by less than one second to take third.Meeuwsen entered the program with a 27-point lead over VanHaitsma, but his day started miserably when he was involved in a wreck during practice, and he and his crew had to hustle to make the repairs. However, Meeuwsen only qualified ninth and missed the fast car dash, and his lead dwindled to 17 heading into the feature.“The guys had to work on it for three hours, and it still isn’t right,” Meeuwsen said. “But I guess it’s over now. I knew I had to finish third, and it wouldn’t turn. It was bad tight. I couldn’t go anywhere. “This was too close for comfort. But this means a lot to our race team and sponsors.”VanHaitsma held off Tom Thomas for his second win of the season.“It’s bittersweet,” VanHaitsma said. “You can’t look back and say what would I have done different. I wish it would have turned out the other way, but to win the Chet is a big win. It is a very big win.”
Saturday’s program also served as the season finale for the traveling Auto Value Super Sprints Series. Jason Blonde of Litchfield locked up his third consecutive championship when he finished fourth in the 30-lap feature, which allowed Blonde to edge out Chad Goff by four points.It was a night Derek Snyder of Dansville will never forget, too. He captured his first career feature race.“This is awesome,” said Snyder, who is in his third season with the Super Sprints. “We have struggled all year long, and we struggled last year with engine problems. We really worked our butts off to get this first win under our belt. “We have set fast time about four times here, but we just haven’t been able to get the feature figured out. But we changed a bunch of stuff to see if it worked, and it worked.”
Championship Weekend opened Friday with Ray VanAllsburg of Wyoming and Brian Tillema of Byron Center clinching championships. VanAllsburg finished second in the Super Stock feature behind Brian Wiersma. That gave the 24-year veteran his first track title. VanAllsburg’s late-season surge allowed him to improve from fifth to first in the season’s final month.Tillema continued his domination in the Pro Stock class. Tillema won his third track title after placing third in the feature behind Weston Jewett and runner-up Justin Regnerus.Brandon Hermiller pulled off one of the best moves of the night when he went from third to first on the final lap to win 15-lap Young Guns feature. Hermiller drove around Kelsey Steele and leader Mitch Meppelink to make it three-wide in turn three and beat the field back to the checkered flag for his third win of the season.
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