Story by: Mason Dunn ~ mason@RACE22.com
Photos by: Bruce Albin/PicYer Photos

Hampton, VA(September 29, 2009) -- September 22, 2007 ... Two years and one week before Saturday night's feature Whelen 100 Late Model Stock race at Langley Speedway was the last time Mark Wertz had been able to drive into Victory Lane after the checkered flag dropped. Back then, the track was running its own rulebook in a class branded Late Model Sportsman and not the conventional NASCAR Late Model Stock rulebook the track is utilizing today.

A noticeably smaller field of 12 cars made it out to Langley on Saturday night despite concerns of rain threatening the area and the night's races. Absent drivers included Woody Howard, who recently parted ways with James Long Motorsports and the 21 car he drove to two wins this season, and Wes Falk, who was at home fixing and preparing his car for this weekend's Bailey's 300 event. Shawn Balluzzo also was not in the field since he is focusing on his Modified effort but did have two trailers at the track since he brought one of his motion racing simulators to entertain his fellow drivers during some of the downtime.

Danny Edwards continued to flex his muscles in the cool weather turning a 16.515 in his second qualifying lap to win the pole by .033 seconds over Mark Wertz while John Staton, Jeff Shifeltt, CE Falk and Paul DeBolt would make up the front half of the field for the start. Greg Edwards on the other hand showed signs of struggle with the track conditions as we would turn a 16.901 placing him tenth on the board for the feature.

At the drop of the green Edwards motored ahead of his front row companion and began his quest to gain as many points on Falk as possible before the end of the night. Falk, who started fifth on the grid was able to follow Staton underneath the Ford of DeBolt into the fourth spot on the track until he was able to bypass Staton on lap 5 and set his sights on the front two whom had put some separation over the rest of the field.

Wertz made his intentions known early on as he began to fill Edwards' mirror with the nose of his 55 Chevy even making some slight bumper-to-bumper contact in the middle of turns one and two. Finally after laps of continuous hounding, Wertz was able to get a look underneath the machine of Edwards and complete the pass on lap 15. As quickly as the pass was made Wertz began to make the second place car smaller and smaller in his rear view mirror as he opened up a six car-length lead by lap 22.
 

Edwards' focus then was shifted from trying to run Wertz back down to trying to hold the oncoming CE Falk off. Falk had run down Edwards as the field had stretched out and stayed caution-free through the first half of the event. On lap 54, Falk began his attack as he poked his nose underneath Edwards in the middle of turns one and two starting a side-by-side battle that would last until lap 56 when Falk cleared Edwards. But the real damage had been done as by this point Wertz had already extended his lead to roughly two and a half seconds over second and third.

Falk began to show his strength while battling through lap traffic as he was able to shave seven tenths off of Wertz's lead. But time was not on Falk's side as the absence of any caution flags had Falk finding himself battling a 1.8 second deficit with only 15 laps left on the board. After 100 green flag laps Wertz was able to sail accross the start/finish line with his left arm extending out the window in celebration as he would win by 1.213 seconds over Falk for his first win of the season. Danny Edwards and Paul DeBolt rounding out the cars left on the lead lap finishing third and fourth respectively. Dean Shiflett was the first car one-lap behind in fifth position.

"Man, I'll tell ya' what, this is the longest two years I think I've spent in racing forever," said an elated Wertz in Dale Lemonds Victory Lane. He went on to speak about the day's effort by both him and his team, "We all made a shock call, right before qualifying, to change the sway bar and, man, all I had to do was graze the brake and she free-rolled right through the middle." The win made Wertz the sixth different winner of 2009 at Langely Speedway.

With one race left in the 2009 points season for the Crossroads Fuel Late Models CE Falk was able to add to his lead making it 20 points over Danny Edwards meaning that Falk only needs to finish 11th or better on October 10th to clinch his first track championship. Meanwhile, Wertz was able to strengthen his hold on third place in the standings as Greg Edwards struggled and fell out early finishing 11th. Wertz now has a 38 point advantage over Greg Edwards. Despite missing the last two events Woody Howard still sits sixth in the standings only four points out of the top five and is rumored to be running the finale event in his own car which he is also running this weekend at Martinsville.

Whelen 100 Results
1) (55) Mark Wertz; 100
2) (40) CE Falk; 100
3) (26) Danny Edwards Jr.; 100
4) (34) Paul DeBolt; 100
5) (06) Dean Shiflett; 99
6) (01) Jeff Shiflett; 99
7) (17) John Staton; 99
8) (4) Matt Waltz; 99
9) (1) Kyle Waltz; 98
10) (15) Doug Warren; 83
11) (27) Greg Edwards; 39
12) (18) Greg Burgess Jr.; 29

Top Ten in Points After Round #18 of 19
1) (40) CE Falk, 836
2) (26) Danny Edwards, 816 (-20)
3) (55) Mark Wertz, 770 (-66)
4) (27) Greg Edwards, 732 (-104)
5) (06) Dean Shiflett, 608 (-226)
6) (21) Woody Howard, 604 (-230)
7) (01) Jeff Shiflett, 572 (-264)
8) (41) Wes Falk, 568 (-268)
9) (4) Matt Waltz, 542 (-294)
10) (1) Kyle Waltz, 516 (-320)
Race Winners; CE Falk(10), Danny Edwards Jr.(3), Woody Howard(2), Greg Edwards(1), Paul DeBolt(1), Mark Wertz(1)