Friday night, February 14th, the second to the last show of the DIRT Nationals was held at the Volusia Speedway Park. With the high level of competition, seeing a repeat winner was quite unexpected and even more so to find both feature winners had also won on Thursday night. But that was exactly the case as Jimmy Owens and Larry Wight, both winners on the previous night and on quite different racing surfaces, once again repeated their main event wins. For Wight it was even more impressive as he became only the third driver in DIRT Nationals history to win three straight nights as the New York driver has won three of the four Big Block mains contested so far with only Matt Williamson keeping him from a clean sweep.
After spectacular weather all week, for the first time the track officials, racers and fans had to battle the weather. As predicted, light rain hit the area overnight and into the morning hours of Friday but it was not of the magnitude to cause any delays or problems.
What wasn't expected was the line of light but persistent showers that drifted into the area in the late afternoon. Arriving after the track prep crews has already slopped in the racing surface as they always do here, the light but steady rain was of the variety to soak into the track surface and when it persisted for well over and hour, the track started to take on that look of a surface that couldn't be saved and I thought we were very close to that point of forcing a cancellation. Fortunately, DIRTcar officials were monitoring the weather and saw the clearing was on the way and that the showers had a predictable ending. As within minutes of the stoppage of the rain, they were out on the track with their heavy equipment, of which they have considerable, and they made the track good again in a relatively short time.
Drivers cooperated and helped roll in the track and the whole process went quite smoothly but the damage was done as the rain created a two hour delay of the racing and eventually would force the final Big Block feature to be completed after Midnight. And quite frankly, the track turned out to be much better than I thought it would be. It did build up quite a heavy berm and it was top side dominant for most of the night but it stayed smooth and the racing conditions really weren't much different than they had been for several of the nights.
However, the appearances when they started to roll in the track apparently scared some of the "panty waists" in the Late Model pits. Despite the fact that it was a ten grand to win show, there were a number of drivers that opted to shutter their machines for the night and just watch. There were forty night drivers that signed in to race in the Late Model pits after Justin Ratliff, Ken Monahan and Earl Pearson Jr opted to call it a week and head home. However, fully a dozen drivers that had planned on racing instead parked their machines when they were afraid they might get mud on their cars including Donnie Schatz, Gregg Satterlee, Shane Clanton, Dale McDowell, Kyle Lear, Donnie Chappell, Tim McCreadie, Johnny and Stormy Scott, Mike Marlar, Mason Zeigler and Jonathan Davenport. On the other hand, only one Big Block Mod failed to race in the form of Dave Raucher and that was reported to be a mechanical issue. By the way, the Mods were racing for three grand, not ten.
The track was lightning fast for time trials with Scott Bloomquist quickest as he cracked the sixteen second barrier. But wait a minute! For the second straight night the "droop rule" but the fast qualifier as Bloomquist found his car be to hiked up too much and in his case the measurement was even farther off than the previous night and he was punished all the way back to the second row for his heat race through which he still qualified for the feature as he joined those snickering at the toothless penalties being passed out.
With all the cars bailing out on this night, only four heat races were held and two Last Chance events were held and even the emergency provisional entrants were cut down as twenty six drivers took the green flag for the main. Before we talk about what was quite an entertaining race, it still should be pointed out that the winner once again started on the pole for the feature although there was certainly more gaining of positions than some nights.
And despite the fact that Owens sat on the pole, it was Mark Whitener that led the opening laps as he was blazing fast on the cushion. However, as has bit him on several occasions this week, his over aggression has haunted him as he jumped the cushion, giving Owens the lead and then later he really got high, bent up his nose and despite his spectacular laps, ended up being a DNF.
Owens led the rest of the way but it was not an easy race as he received much pressure during the middle portion of the event. Ricky Weiss, who has been quite quiet all week, made a strong charge from twelfth as he was the only driver to be successful on the bottom. He moved up to second and was just inches away from taking the lead from Owens. However, Jimmy fought him off and then after that Weiss steadily faded back, finally falling all the way to seventh.
Then it was another Florida high flyer in Kyle Bronson that provided the excitement and he torched the cushion as he likes to do, getting all the way up to second and seemingly was the only one that could challenge Owens. A late yellow set a five lap dash to the finish but Bronson had nothing for Owens who pulled away from everyone. Bronson made the podium once again in second and Darrell Lanigan, who drove a very steady race, finished third. Brandon Sheppard, seemingly just not quite fast enough to stay with the leaders lately, and Brandon Overton completed the top five. There were only five drivers that didn't finish the contest and no large wrecks so those that chose to spectate instead of race missed on their predictions on Friday.
The Big Block feature got off to a tough start as Peter Brittan spun on the first lap and Michael Maresca made contact but both were able to continue. Rick Laubach had the pole but the driver that looked strong and moved into the lead was Billy Decker. Decker put some distance on the field as after a lap eleven yellow for a slowing car, the last twenty laps ran under the green.
As Decker ran alone up front, Wight was on a tear as he moved up from his seventh starting spot. He passed some very fast cars as he was able to move all over the track on this night. Matt Sheppard, who most have been expecting to do much better this week, seemed to be a challenger as he ran second but when Wight caught him, he simply drove right past as Sheppard began to fade and would fall all the way back to seventh at the finish.
Decker started to catch traffic and as he was running the low groove, he was having trouble finding room to pass some of the slower cars. Wight sensed this and seemed to drive even harder into the corners and he began to visibly close up on the leader. Decker continued to refuse to get off the bottom to try and get by the slower cars and Wight pulled right up behind him.
Larry swung up the track and drove right past Decker with four laps to go and then stretched the lead the rest of the way as he drove on to another resounding win. The only other winner this week, Matt Williamson made his own charge as he moved from ninth to third and was breathing down Decker's deck when the checkered flew. Anthony Perrego, from thirteenth and Jimmy Phelps completed the top five with the Big Blocks having the advantage of the wider track as they were the last ones to complete the show.
It was an extremely humid and heavy air night and I could actually see the vapor trails coming off the spoilers of the Late Models as they races through the corners. I have seen this on occasion from the big wings on the sprint cars but I can never remember seeing this before from the Late Models. However, with the humid air here in Florida, it that is going to happen, this would be the time and place for it to occur.
The weather is scheduled to improve and warm up again for the Saturday night finale. Both classes are scheduled to wrap up their week of racing with fifty lap main events on Saturday. It should be noted that I will be traveling directly after the races on Saturday so the final report from Florida may be slightly delayed.
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