Steele wins Nazareth midgets

Dave Steele passed polesitter Bobby East with six laps remaining to win the 30-lap United States Auto Club National Midget Car Series race at Nazareth Speedway.

"Bobby got the jump on the start and I wasn't all that concerned about it," Steele said after taking his second consecutive midget win and his third of the season. "But as the race went on I started losing ground to him."

However, the race's third caution flag enabled Steele to get close enough to East to slide past him on the ensuing restart, as the two raced side-by-side into the first turn. "Bobby was very brave to race me on the outside of turn one like he did. But, I could tell that his right rear tire was starting to go away. We ran side-by-side for a while and he slid up a little bit and we were able to get underneath him."

Once Steele assumed the lead, East, whose tires were losing grip with each ensuing lap, simply could not keep up with him. As a result, the five-time midget winner had to settle for second, .218 seconds behind Steele.

"Dave's tough to beat," East said. "I was trying as hard as I could. We just weren't getting good restarts and I should have protected the bottom better. We were right there behind him, but we didn't have much to pass him. I'm sure my tires were starting to go away because we were going at it pretty hard."

Aaron Fike, who started 13th, finished third. "We ran second or third the last couple years here and we made a good car," he said. "I think we were fourth quick. We just had problems with the motor in qualifying and obviously we still had problems with it in the race, but we still had a very good car and came up to the front."

Aaron Fike and Ron Gregory rounded out the top five.

See also: USAC-S: Hines claims win at Nazareth