Gabe Sommers crossed the line first on Tuesday night in the Dixieland 250 but was penalized a lap when it was discovered that he used his emergency tire without having the one lap penalty immediately assessed, which gave the win to Ty Majeski instead.
For the race, teams were only allowed to use six tires, four to start and two extra. Beyond that, there are two emergency tires available to be used in case of an emergency but it would result in a one lap penalty, which was not enforced in real time against the defending ASA Midwest Tour champions.
The tires were impounded after the race in the inspection shed where it was determined it was an emergency tire.
In a series post-race report, Sommers characterized it as a miscommunication because he never though a car damaged in a late crash would be good enough to contend.
“It was a miscommunication on a tire,” Sommers said. “They never docked us a lap when we went back out with the emergency spare. The plan was never to run back to the front, my car was wrecked. The front suspension was drug off from the flat tire. We didn’t have all the same parts but we put on what we could find. We were just going to ride around and salvage the best finish we could. As we took the green after the restart, the car was a rocket and thought we really had something. We worked really hard the whole race and it just sucks what happened, but that’s in the past now and we are looking forward to Iowa next week.”
Sommers immediately drew the suspicion of his fellow contenders with his burnout in depictions sent to Short Track Scene after the race with most believing it was an effort to mask the tire.
But again, Sommers never thought the car could drive back to the front anyway and he was surprised how much pace it had.
“The damage made us have to change suspension parts and the parts we put on were not the same as what was originally on there and it was two times better then the car was before we
blew the tire,” he said.
