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POWRi Midgets - Felker Takes Championship, Brown Wins Finale


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BELLEVILLE, Oct. 8, 2012: Andrew Felker secured the championship by finishing ninth and Austin Brown drove to his first feature victory in the POWRi Lucas Oil National Midget Series on Saturday at Belle-Clair Speedway.

Felker entered the season-ending eighth annual Charlene Meents Memorial needing to take 17th or better to clinch his first POWRi title. The 19-year-old from Carl Junction, Mo., took third in his heat to start ninth in the 22-car feature and drove conservatively in his Fontana-powered Spike. He won the title by 100 points, 3,080-2,980, over runner-up Brett Anderson, the only driver who could have overtaken Felker.

“I’m really at a loss for words,” Felker said. “It hasn’t settled in. We managed to finish it off. The last month and a half has been kind of stressful. We started directly behind Brett and wanted to keep him in our sights, but when he began moving up, we just tried to run as hard as we could and stay out of trouble.”

Anderson of Belleville, Ill., finished second in the Meents.

“We had a fast car,” he said. “I really would have liked to have won the final race driving for my dad (Keith, who is closing down the family-owned team), but it was a good run. Andrew deserves the championship.”

Brown has been a POWRi regular in National Midgets since 2008 and his victory came in his 119th start. The 22-year-old from Millstadt, Ill., had finished second twice previously.

“This is awesome and it came on my home track,” Brown said. “It’s been tough getting the first one. It’s kind of getting a big weight lifted off. We had chances and we didn’t capitalize on them. This feels great.”

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Brown started from pole in his Spike-Esslinger and led the opening 15 laps on the one-fifth mile track. But on a restart, Danny Stratton passed him with a slide job in turns three and four.

Brown stayed close to Stratton and regained the lead by overtaking him exiting turn four on the 22nd lap. Brown led from there to the checkered flag in the 30-lap race and won by five car lengths.

“Once Stratton got past me, I got back up on the wheel and ran underneath him,” Brown said. “My car was really hooked up and ran through the bumps down low. It was probably the best out of any of the cars through the bumps.”