July 21, 2002; Slinger, WI - After nailing down two early season victories, Donavan Morgan finally returned to victory lane Sunday night at the Slinger Super Speedway when he won the 65-lap late model feature.

Morgan had to fend off a strong late race challenge from David Prunty to secure the win, his first at the speedway since May 19th. Morgan started from the pole position and secured the lead on lap three after racing alongside Dave Teske as Jamie Wallace and Conrad Morgan ran side by side for third. The battle for third place bunched up the remainder of the field as Morgan and Teske began to distance themselves from the rest of the drivers. Hard racing between Randy Schuler and Prunty produced another traffic jam effect as the field slowed momentarily, sending Lowell Bennett and Rich Loch into a spin down the front straightaway to bring out the caution on lap 12.

Donavan led on the restart over Teske and Wallace as Conrad had to deal with Chris Petersen and David Prunty in a fight for the fourth position. Prunty made his way around Petersen on lap 17 for fifth and three laps later, raced around Conrad to take over fourth. As Prunty was getting ready to overtake Wallace for third, Donavan led at the halfway mark and collected the $200 Mac Tools Halfway Challenge Bonus. The second and final caution flag of the race appeared on lap 38 when Fred Winn and Mike Pascavis got together in turn four.

Prunty appeared to have the strongest car as the race went back to green and he immediately went to work on Teske for second while Morgan maintained the top spot. Prunty took over second place on lap 44 and began to cut into Morgan's lead. With ten laps to go, Morgan slipped slightly in turn two and Prunty closed to his bumper but two laps later, Prunty bobbled in the same corner and lost about five car lengths. That slip proved to be costly as Prunty was unable to catch Morgan who crossed the finish line to take the win by three car lengths. Teske ran an impressive race to finish third while Mike Egan charged late to snare a fourth place finish ahead of Wallace and Eric Fransen. Petersen, Bennett, Chris Ratajczyk, and Al Schill completed the top ten finishers.

(Article by Weyer/Margetta)
(Photos by Al Graf Jr.)