Duane Poerson clinches UMARA Championship

The best feeling a driver can have is clinching the championship while taking the checkered flag. That's exactly what UMARA's Duane Pierson did recently in winning the 1996 UMARA National Division championship. Pierson not only won the feature at Bear Field Speedway, Fort Wayne Indiana, but also was quick qualifier and a heat race winner.

The quick time in qualifying was a track record for midgets. This was Duane's fourth track record of 1996. He also hold's records at the UMARA home track, Grundy County Speedway along with Anderson, Indiana, and Galesburg, Michigan.

Surprisingly, the feature win at Fort Wayne was Pierson's first of the year. As was his heat race win. Duane won this championship on consistency. 11 times he finished in the top ten in the feature out of 15 events. Six times he was in the top five in the feature. Won a semi- final race and was quick qualifier five times. This is Pierson's first UMARA championship. David Thompson finished second in points followed by Don Carter. Jr., John Warren and David Ward. Stan Hanson was Rookie of the Year finishing just ahead of David Gill.

Fort Wayne marked the second time in two events that a UMARA Carstar Sportsman driver tried his luck in the National class. Roger Bettenhausen put Hoosier slick tires on his car, did some chassis work and pulled the restrictors out of his VW engine and qualified 19th out of 29 veteran UMARA and ARCA midget racers. He just missed making the feature while finishing sixth in the semi. The top five transferred.  The event previously saw Scott Shilkuski run with the Nationals, finishing 18th in the feature. (See Volume 1, Number 17).

A reminder that the UMARA awards banquet will be held November 16th at the Elk's Club in Joliet.