Ogle Fights Off Bianchi To Win The Connecticut 100

Tom Ogle's sleek Tour Modified race car, adorned with sponsorship decals and Teddy Christopher's number 13, ready for action on the track.

Tom Ogle extended his points lead to 16 Tuesday night as he held off a late-charging Brian Bianchi for the win. Jeff LeMire got his first podium of the year and held off a hard-charging Torrance Childs for third place.

Ogle was cautiously optimistic Tuesday night as the YesterYear Tour Modified "circus" headed to a tricky Thompson Motor Speedway where the wind was whipping over 20mph at the start of the race. Ogle had success last year at Thompson winning two out of the three races held there, but Ogle had to start behind pole sitter Kenny Allen who set a blistering qualifying time of 18.581 seconds, and Jeff LeMire.

The race went quickly under caution as several drivers got loose coming out of turn 4 on lap 5. ToyMaker Racing driver Gavin Adams took a spin through the infield, but looked fine to continue on as his car had limited damage. Chris Davis and Randy Schuler also found themselves on the infield with the later hitting what looked to be curbing in turn 1 and then struck another ToyMaker Racing driver, Allen Wannamaker, in the left side panel. Wannamaker's car flip over the railing and out of the park in what looked to be a night-ending crash.

When the race resumed, Kenny Allen and Tom Ogle made it look like a two-horse race for awhile until another caution bunched up the field. On the restart, Allen found himself again under pressure from Ogle who eventually got by as Allen slid up into the "marbles" and lost many spots. Allen eventually went a lap down when he collected Jeffery Hardin as the two battled for position.

The waning laps saw a hard-charging Brian Bianchi begin to apply pressure to the front runner Ogle. Bianchi, the defending Series Champion, had been on cruise control much of the night saving his tires. In the end though, Bianchi ran out of laps and Tom Ogle took the victory. "I felt like I had a shot at him. Maybe if the race had a few more laps in it I could have gotten him, but Tom is a great driver and did not make a mistake," Bianchi said in his post-race interview. "He was faster than I was at the end. I think he saved his Hoosiers a little better than I did. All I could do was hold my line and make him take the difficult way around if he was going to try and pass me. I want to thank Brian for racing me clean. Everyone in this League has good race craft which is one of the many aspects that make this League so fun," Ogle said in his post-race interview.

The Series will visit South Boston Speedway for the second time this year next week (Tuesday, June 3) as the drivers will run the Old Dominion 267 before wrapping up the first half of the season and taking the summer off.