A Busy Labor Day Weekend
Warm weather and a picture pefect weekend had the stands packed as the Dunn-Olivieri race team for three races over the Labor Day Holiday as the visited Raceway 7 in Conneaut, Friday evening and onto Tri-City Speedway for the two Day Oil Region Classic and the Kinzua Water Service UEMS E-Mod Series doubleheader.
Fridays action had ninteen cars signed into the pits at the lighting fast Conneaut power plant with two heats to decide the who would make the pill redraw, starting 8th in the second heat race, Dunn worked his way up to 3rd making him elgible for the redraw. As luck would have it , a head up start would have Russ starting 6th in the 20 lap feature. In what turned out to be a caution filled race, by lap ten Dunn would move up to 2nd and tried to catch the leader. Unable to make a serious challange to the race leader , Dunn would come home with a strong 2nd place finish, Russ keeps knocking on the the door with two 2nd place and one 3rd place finish in his last three RW7 visits and is hoping to contuine the momentun in the $3000 to win UEMS Invitational on September 11th in the the third of six KWS UEMS races to be run in the month of September.
Looking to carry over Fridays momentum at Tri-City Speedway, a steller field of 37 cars were on hand for the $1000 to win event. Four heats were to be run with Dunn starting 4th in the fourth heat race.. Racing on a slick track surface,Russ was able to finish 4th and make the feature, however was one position short of of ther redraw meaning he would have to start 16th in the 20 lap feature. The slick track proved to be a handful as the race green until consecutive cautions on laps 9 & 10 with Dunn having moved up to 11th. Trying to improve his position and learn something for Sundays race Russ went to the top groove of the track. this would prove to be the wrong decision as he fell back four spots to finish 15th.
As the saying goes “there is always another day”. and Sunday for another $1000 to win show the time was now. The team made many changes to the car in aticipation of another slick track for the 25 lap feature. 40 cars would be present for night two of the KWS UEMS E-Mods with four heats to determine the 25 cars that would start the feature. Once again Dunn would be in the fourth heat race, however the changes made to the car would pay off as this would have Russ finishing 2nd and making the redraw,. The redraw would be a favorable one as he would start on the outside pole for the feature. The initial start of the feature had a caution before the field completed one lap, and on the ensuing restart Dunn would cross the line in second on the first lap,and then fall back to third. Dunn would hold that position until lap ten ten when he would drop to fouth. Dunn would hold that position when he dropped one spot to fifth on lap eighteen . With the 25 laps going non stop to to the checkers Dunn would finish a much improved 5th .
