Portland, Oregon driver John Duty needed four starts to find the Victory Lane for the first time in 2008, but in 2009 he only needed three starts as Duty put forth a dominating performance to score his first win of the year Saturday May 9th at Willamette Speedway in Lebanon, Oregon.
This was Duty’s first start since he suffered a serious arm injury on April 12th when he slipped and fell off the borrowed trailer the team was using while unloading equipment. The injury resulted in a fractured humerus and nerve damage that has left Duty with numbness and weakness in his right hand and fingers, but it did not hamper him on his way to Victory Lane. Duty started off by timing in 5th quick overall out of the 33 super late models in attendance. Duty parlayed a scratch by another competitor into a dash victory by leading all 4 laps from his inside front row starting spot, and then followed that up with a solid 3rd place finish in his heat race.
Starting 12th in the fully inverted field, Duty quickly worked his way toward the front utilizing all 3 grooves of the track and had worked his way up to the 3rd position when the first caution flag fell around lap 15. The resulting restart saw Duty quickly move into the 2nd position and set his sights after front row starter and race-long leader Jeremy Shank. Shank and Duty set a blistering pace around the rim for 15 laps or so running nose to tail within a car length or two of each other. As the laps were winding down, a late caution gave Duty an opportunity to take a chance on the bottom groove as the grip level of the top groove was diminishing. Duty took the lead from Shank a lap and a half after the final restart and pulled out to about a straightaway lead at the checkered flag.
