Doug Pace: Nicole Behar continues push in K&N Pro Series

Nicole Behar continues to make a late-season charge in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series.

The Otis Orchards teenager qualified inside the top 10 at last Saturday’s NAPA 150 in Roseburg, Oregon, and brought home another solid finish to maintain her efforts to reach the top five in the championship standings by season’s end.

Coming into the weekend, Behar held a three-point margin inside the top-10 championship standings. Leading Kory Vanderwal by that razor-thin gap, Behar used a solid run in Roseburg to increase her lead on Vanderwal to seven points while also keeping within striking distance of Matt Levin and Julia Landauer, who hold down the eighth- and seventh-place positions, respectively.

To reach the goal of her first series top-five NASCAR championship finish, Behar will need to continue to post solid results as she trails fifth-place Michael Self by 29 points with three races left in the season.

NASCAR’s K&N Pro Series has one more visit to the Northwest, Sept. 30 in Meridian, Idaho, before it wraps up the year with two California races in early fall.

Havens wins at South Sound

Braeden Havens went to South Sound Speedway looking to turn his season around, which in turn would end a one-year super late model winless streak for him and his team.

Doing so at a track that features high speed and demands handling, Havens had his work cut out for him heading into last weekend’s 100-lap main event. As an added pressure, the Medical Lake driver had never raced the tricky three-eighths-mile Western Washington facility.

The 24-year-old picked up the win, besting a stout field that also included Spokane’s David Garber.

With Oregon’s Alan Cress hot on his heels in the closing laps, Havens’ Chevrolet cornered well enough to withstand the charge and see the checkered flag.

“Our car had the same speed throughout the night and it was great to be able to get to the throttle with Cress closing in and know it’d stick in the corners,” Havens said. “(Crew chief) Jim Dodson and the crew worked hard all day to give me a car that could contend for the win. To get a win at South Sound is really cool because of all the history there. Doing it on our first trip out there was even better and it was Jim’s first career victory as our super late model team’s crew chief.”

Last weekend’s race had a good mix of local drivers and regional stars, including Glenn Knutson, the 2015 Northwest Super Late Model Series Rookie of the Year; Garber, who has multiple track and Inland Northwest touring championships; Bob Pressley, South Sound’s multitime division champion and current late model points leader; and Kurt Meyer, who when not serving as a crew member for Ron Eaton, is a contender in super late model races across the Northwest.

“It was a good group of guys out there battling it out, that’s for sure,” Havens said. “When you can go into a place that guys like Meyer and Pressley have been successful at and get a win on their home track, it’s really special. We’ll savor this one for a while then get back to work next month in the Las Vegas Bullring Fall Classic. We’ve been strong down there and this win gives us some momentum.”

Subhead

The Washington Modified Tour takes part in one of its biggest races of the season on Saturday as the support show for Skagit Speedway’s annual World of Outlaw’s Sprint Car Series stops in the Northwest.

Colville’s Tiana Berkeley will be one to watch as she used a pair of top-10 finishes at the Tour’s stop in Republic two week’s ago to boost her chances for a top-five finish in the season’s championship standings.

Working toward consistent runs in her heat races and the night’s feature events, Berkeley earned a pair of top-three heat-race finishes at Eagle Raceway, including a runner-up run on the Tour’s second night of competition.

The results moved Berkeley to seventh in the championship standings, 27 markers behind sixth-place Lawrence O’Conner and 53 points behind James Wolford, who rounds out the top-five running order in the title chase.

The WMT race at Skagit will be the final single-day event of the season before the two-day championship weekend at Yakima’s State Fair Park set for Sept. 22-23.