Story by: Mason Dunn ~ mason@RACE22.com

Durham, NC(February 3, 2010) -- The 2009 season did not start out well for David Triplett. An early exit from Orange County Speedway's season opener after only 21 of the scheduled 100 laps would leave Triplett in a bit of a hole to race winner Stacy Puryear.

But, after a near two month break due to weather cancelling the race scheduled for May 9th, Triplett would return to form sweeping the twin races on June 13 and moving into third place in points only eight points behind leader Puryear.

Puryear would re-widen the margin to 14 points by winning the following event on June 27 while Triplett would finish in third. At this point the two title contenders stats looked almost identical except for top-fives where Puryear had four while Triplett only had three.

The race on July 4th would bring an unexpected hurdle to Triplett's title hopes as a disqualification would send him home with an 11th place finish while Puryear went on to his third win of the season. The finish would drop Triplett back to third in points behind Brandon Baker and would extend Puryear's points lead to 32.

But when he got knocked down he got right back up as only two weeks later Triplett would claim his third win of the season in the first twin race of the night on July 18th and then finish fifth in the second twin. The night moved Triplett back into second in points but still 32 points in the hole to leader Puryear.

August 29th brought on Triplett's fourth win of the season and with Puryear finishing in fifth, it enabled Triplett to gain 10 points and decrease the margin to 22 points between himself and Puryear with only four races remaining.

On September 19th Triplett continued to flex his muscle in twin 75 lap races earning his fifth win of the season in the first race as well as his eighth top-five by finishing second in the second race. With Puryear finishing fourth and fifth in each race, Triplett was able to regain 14 points on his title foe and close the margin in to only eight points with two races remaining in the Orange County points season.

The next to last race on October 10th would bring the title chase back to square one as Triplett claimed his sixth win of the season while Puryear would finish in the fourth position placing the two tied atop the points leaderboard with 512 points each going into the final race.

So it all came down to the final race of the season to decide who was going to be crowned the 2009 Orange County Late Model Stock track champion. While a visiting South Boston track champion, Justin Johnson, would lay
 

claim to the win that night, David Triplett did what he needed to do to win the title finishing second while Puryear would once again finish fourth. The finish gave Triplett his first Late Model Stock championship in probably the closest and most talked about points battles of the season, winning by only four points over Puryear.

2009 Orange County Speedway Season Stats
12 Starts
6 Wins
10 Top-fives
11 Top-tens

Date Finish # of cars
April 18 9th 9
June 13 1st 11
June 13(2) 1st 11
June 27 3rd 13
July 4 11th(DQ) 12
July 18 1st 11
July 18(2) 5th 10
August 29 1st 17
Sept. 19 1st 14
Sept. 19(2) 2nd 14
October 10 1st 12
October 24 2nd 15

Final Top 10 In Points
1) #00 David Triplett 560
2) #17 Stacy Puryear 556
3) #06 Terry Dease 512
4) #1 Craig Moore 498
5) #77 Tracey Chambers 452
6) #50 Lawrence Boan 398
7) #29 Brandon Baker 378
8) #18 Tripp Massengill 350
9) #41 Will Riley 186
10) #28 Ryan Glenski 176