August 12, 2008
Hartford, OH…Bright sunny skies greeted 43 E-Mod drivers as the took part as Sharon Speedway hosted the “Duel in the Dirt II” staring NASCAR drivers Dave Blaney, Kevin Harvick, and Kenny Schrader in a 25-lap showdown with the local drivers.
The 43 car files was divided into four 8-lap heat races with the top three in each heat advancing to the pill redraw and the top five to the feature. Starting tenth in the first heat race, Dunn knew he would have his work cut out for him to make A strong field of cars slowed Russ’ charge to the front, and was running sixth when a caution came out on lap six. Using the caution to his advantage, Russ was able to move up two positions to fourth making the main-event, but missing the re-draw.
Starting 13th in the 25 lap feature, Russ looked forward to a march to the front. A first lap caution allowed Russ to gain three spots and move up to 10th and 8th by lap two. Lap three he was not so lucky as Dunn, and Kevin Harvick and several other were involved in a multi car pile up forcing Russ to the pits with a flat right front tire. The crew made the tire charge and Dunn, rejoined the race in 16th. It was green flag racing over the next thirteen laps with Dunn advancing to 7th when the final caution of the night flew on lap 19.As the green flag waved the remaining field of cars raced to the checkers with Russ picking up two more spots to finish fifth.
August 23,2008
Hartford, OH…making their fourth visit of the month to Sharon Speedway, Dunn-Olivieri Racing was looking for a victory. It seems every time the team visits Sharon as little bad luck seems to follow them (fist time a blown motor while leading, second time a broken shock while leading and Saturday night after just getting the lead the rear end lift bar broke) the last two the team was able to come always with third place finishes, but not the top spot they were looking for.
A field of 23 E-Mods were in the pits and three heats would be used to determine the feature line up Needing only to finish in the top four in each heat for the re-draw, Russ used a third place finish in the second heat to move in the re-draw. The re-draw would give Russ the outside pole for the 15 lap feature. Taking his time,Russ used a caution on lap four to make his move. On lap five he made the pass for the lead and began to pull away from the field. Bad luck would happen on lap 6 as coming out of turn two the pull bar broke giving the car no forward bite and dropping him to fourth. Russ was able to make it back to third as the second place car had mechanical problems allowing Russ to advance one more position.