HAUGHTON, La. (August 14) - Polesitter Kenny Merchant of West Monroe, La., continued his dominance at Champion Park Speedway on Saturday by grabbing his fifth victory of the last six series events held at the quarter-mile oval. Merchant earned $2,500 for leading all 40 laps, taking the checkers six seconds ahead of 15th-starting hometown driver Ray Moore in the O'Reilly Auto Parts Southern United Professional Racing event.

Merchant debuted a new all-black No. c28 in notching his fourth straight victory at Champion Park while Moore edged Chris Holley of Dayton, Texas, by 3/4-car length for second spot. A pair of Minden, La., drivers - Allen Tippen and Jeff Chanler rounded out the top five.

"I don't know what I have found here," the 39-year-old Merchant said of his Champion Park success. "We used to say we hated coming over here because we always struggled and get in wrecks for whatever reason. Now it's like we broke over the hump and won one finally. Now you hate to say it or sound cocky, but it's almost like you can't lose one."

Merchant continued, "They have changed the racetrack up a lot from back in the day from when we use to not like it. Now you can actually race on it pretty good, I definitely think that it helps. Anytime you can race, start in the back of a heat, just like tonight we starting fourth and won our heat, then it will put you in good shape in the front row for the feature. It is an advantage to stay up front, it's different and a good racetrack for us now.

We stuck with the bottom tonight when we would have a clear track, it just carried the momentum better. There really wasn't that much moisture there (on the bottom), but it was the shortest way around the racetrack. We just kind of floated it in there and go across the middle, then scoot on out back to the wall to carry the momentum down the straights. When we got to lapped cars, we passed half those cars on the bottom and half we passed on the top, so we could move around. Just like Ray (Moore), he came from 15th-to-second running the top, so you can't say it was a one-groove racetrack tonight. I thought it was an awesome racetrack and they do a good job in prepping the track here now. Use to when we came here, it always got one-laned and sure as I say it, it will happen, but it hasn't been one-laned it a while -definite improvements for us here.

Merchant got the jump on Holley at the outset as the frontrunners pulled away from the third-running Chanler early in the race. Merchant began lapping slower cars by lap 11 and was stretching his lead on Holley when a caution for Timothy Culp bunched the field on lap 14. The points battle between 12th-starting Rob Litton and 8th-starting Kyle Cummings heated up as well, with Litton getting by Cummings before the lone caution flew. 

The 40-lapper stayed green the rest of the way and Holley began to struggle after losing his brakes about halfway through the race. As Merchant built a comfortable lead, his only concern was traffic as Holley contended with Tippen, Chanler and Ronny Adams in a battle for second.

Moore's charge began in earnest as he broke into the top five late in the race, then took fourth from Chanler on lap 32. His high-side momentum helped Moore take third from Tippen and he set his sights on Holley in the final three laps.

With Merchant cruising out front, Holley tried his best to hold off Moore's challenge, but Moore's high side move exiting turn four coming to the checkered flags gave him second place.

Notes: Merchant's Trak-Star Race Car is powered by Wall 2 Wall Performance Engines and sponsored by J.D. Caver & Company, J&J Motorsports, Bayou Fabricators, Henry's Auto Salvage, Cypress Bend Apartments and Xtreme Graphics.

Merchant planned on saving the new black car for the August 20-21 Comp Cams Topless 100 in Batesville (Ark) Motor Speedway, but he went ahead with it at Champion Park because he doesn't have an open-competition engine to run the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series event in Arkansas.

Merchant's win marked his 56th career SUPR Series victory and is tops on the all-time win list.

Also Merchant's victory places him in a tie with David Ashley for the most SUPR Series wins at Champion Park Speedway at five (all Merchant's victories have come in a 15-month span).

Thirteen cars finished on the lead lap and the feature was slowed by a single caution.

Entrants included modified standout Morgan Bagley of Longview, Texas; Odie Green of Fouke, Arkansas (who last won in the SUPR Series in April 2002); area modified driver Brett Frazier (making his Late Model debut); and local driver Troy Berdan.

Biggest mover of the feature was Ray Moore of Haughton, going from 15th-to-second. Moore talked about his climb up through the field in the feature and nipping Holley for second at the line,""I definitely wasn't planning on running the top, we set up the car to run around the bottom and everybody just fell in line after the green flag. I passed a couple cars on the bottom, it didn't seem like we were going to go anywhere and I definitely wasn't going to follow the guy in front of me. So I started moving around, going where I needed to and definitely felt like I passed more cars on the top than I did on the bottom. I really felt like we could have been as good down there on bottom than on top, but it was the case of everybody was already down below."

"We didn't change a whole lot on the car between the heat and the feature. We tightened up our corner entry just a little bit and made a tire change -a little harder compound tire. That was about it, we have found a pretty good balance with this Mars Race Car and this is the best we have ever been at Champion Park. Our heat race was definitely stacked and it was hard to come up through there. I almost wish they would do away with the passing points and start timing in, so I could get a little better starting spot," Moore added.

Kevin Sitton of Baytown, Tex., advanced from his 17th-starting spot to finish seventh.

David Ashley of Zachary, La., broke an axle in hot laps, but made repairs to take a provisional in the feature. He started 22nd and finished 12th.

Allen Tippen of Minden, enjoyed another solid run in his new MasterSbilt by Mars race car. He debuted the black and orange No. 71a machine at Champion Park this past May and has ten SUPR Series races in it now. Six of those ten series races have produced top five finishes for Tippen, including two second places.

"When we got that car, Jimmy (Mars) and Ray (Moore) are real good friends and he (Ray) kind of hooked me in that deal through him. But when I ran my GRT, I run a little different than everybody else as far as spring rates and everything else. Jimmy was running stuff more to what I was comfortable with, like stiff right front springs and stuff like that, so when we got into the new car (MasterSbilt by Mars), it fit me right off-the-bat. I haven't had very many new cars, but I haven't had to do a whole lot to this one. When it came from Jimmy and I got into it, it was the most comfortable I have ever felt in a car. Greg (Holmes) use to get on to me a lot when I started changing cars, because I have a '99 GRT that fit pretty good and I was use to. I just haven't run it - but I still have it! The six SUPR races that I have won, have been in that car ('99 GRT), this new MasterSbilt by Mars has been the only one I have had that I like better than that car," Tippen said. Allen won in the '99 GRT at Champion Park Speedway in March 2009.

Tippen battled in the top five most of the race with Chanler, Adams and later on Ray Moore Saturday night. Tippen's fourth place finish is something to build on, the next time the O'Reilly Auto Parts SUPR Series comes to Champion Park on Labor Day weekend, as he explains.

"When we fired off, I wasn't sure what the track was going to do honestly. We went with a 1350 (tire) and I might not have had it cut up enough, I'm not sure. We fired off good, but I didn't know how long we were going to be able to stay up there. I knew I needed to go as soon as possible, but the track didn't get as black as I thought it was going to because of too much loose stuff on it. After the caution, once I passed Adams and Chanler, I knew we had something going here. I was pretty good when getting into lap traffic and I could see Kenny (Merchant) up there. I knew we could have something for the frontrunners, but I believed my tires got filled up because it didn't fire off like it once did. We will get it to the shop, look at those tires and see if we can't find out what went wrong there towards the end. We were going good at first, later Ray (Moore) jumped up on the high side and I should have done that earlier, but I was scared to. Everywhere I looked in front of me, everybody was on the bottom and if I bailed out up there I thought I was going to get passed. Everytime I heard Ray, he was there and then it wasn't nothing I could do, so that last lap I went up there just to try it and told myself, 'I should have been up here ten laps earlier'."     

Drivers failing to make the feature included, Alex Ashley, Jay Brunson, Wesley Chanler, John Ewell, Paul Joyner, Jon Mitchell, Eric Neal, Darin Patrick, Chad Patterson and Robbie Starnes.

The O'Reilly Auto Parts SUPR Series takes a week off before heading to the 1/2-mile of Devil's Bowl Speedway in Mesquite, Texas on August 28th.

SUPR @ Champion Park: (1) Kenny Merchant, (2) Ray Moore, (3) Chris Holley, (4) Allen Tippen, (5) Jeff Chanler, (6) Ronny Adams, (7) Kevin Sitton, (8) Rob Litton, (9) Jody Prince, (10) Kyle Cummings, (11) Odie Green, (12) David Ashley, (13) Lee Davis, (14) B.J. Robinson, (15) Morgan Bagley, (16) Josh Danzy, (17) Timothy Culp, (18) Troy Berdan, (19) Mark Andrews, (20) Brett Frazier, (21) Charlie Morrow, (22) Jim Bryant

Heat race winners (among 32 cars): Adams, Holley, J. Chanler, Merchant
Consolation winners: Sitton, Frazier
Provisional starters: D. Ashley, Danzy