Thursday night, February 11th the presiding two divisions at Volusia Speedway Park this week, the World of Outlaw Late Models and the Big Block Modifieds, were back in action once again. Conditions were aligned for a fast race track on this night as sit was humid, the track had been watered generously and the skies clouded over, making for oppressively muggy conditions that would hold the moisture in the racing surface.
After several hard nights of running on this high speed and somewhat bumpy track this year, mechanical issues and failures are starting to be more prevalent. Bomb Briggs, Jeff Mathews and Mark Whitener for sure have all switched cars for this Thursday night show and they may well have been others that I was not aware of. Also, the first defections of the week started to appear as Spencer Hughes, Josh Rice, Donnie Chappell and Clay Harris, who had all raced previously here this week, left and headed home. And before the night was over there would be a number that would follow that lead.
In the Big Blocks, Jeremy Smith headed home while Tim Fuller, who had problems with his own car, was able to step into a back up car provided by Mike Maresca so he could continue to race. Of course, the biggest news was that Stewart Friesen, winner of both of the Big Block shows so far, would be committed to his NASCAR duties on this night and wouldn't be available to race, thus ensuring that a new winner will be crowned in this class.
The "hammer down" qualifying saw Devin Moran turn the quickest lap at 16,054 seconds to ensure the pole for a heat race. It also saw Tim McCreadie hurt his motor and Ashton Winger, who hurt his in hot laps, would both join the parade of drivers heading out the pit gate.
The skies would get increasingly angry looking as the sun set and three laps into the third Late MOdel heat, it began to rain. And it did rain for quite some time, hard at certain points and then backing off. Eventually the rain would stop and the track crew would get back on the racing surface and make the long hard task of getting the racing surface decent to race on again. It was a slow process but surprisingly, a good number of tough race fans stuck it out and after three hours of waiting, the racing continued again well after 11 pm with still most of the show to be completed.
Three remaining heat races and thee Last Chance races still had to be run in the Late Models while the Big Blocks had their four heat races to run also. A number of teams loaded up after they saw the very heavy conditions they would have to run in and the rest of the preliminaries saw some diminished fields take the green. However, track officials kept things moving along and those left to race continued to battle.
The way the order of events played out, even though the Late Models were scheduled to be the first main on this night, it was more convenient and helped expedite the show to have the Big Blocks run their feature first. All the cars in this class were eligible to run the main but due to attrition and some opting to park, there were twenty seven that took the green flag and they couldn't get through the first corner before producing a big wreck.
Two of the biggest names in the sport, Matt Sheppard and Peter Britten, were both turned around into the wall when "Mad Max" McLaughlin, slid up the track and clobbered Sheppard who in turn drilled Britten. Sheppard clearly expressed his feelings when he pulled up and parked nose to nose with McLaughlin during the yellow flag before both He and Britten headed for pit lane for repairs. Later Sheppard would make his point even more apparent and McLaughlin showed up at the track the following night with a "shiner" and a fat lip.
Jimmy Phelps would lead briefly before McLaughlin, not penalized although he clearly caused the wreck, would drive into the lead. After that he maintained the top spot through a series of four more yellows with the last coming on lap twenty three.
Suddenly however, a serious contender emerged when Billy Decker, running fifth, opted to try the high side of the track, a lane that others were not using. It took him a bit to build up some momentum there but once he got it figured out, he started to move forward quickly. Turns three and four were particularly beneficial to him as he clearly was gaining big chunks of ground there. With just a couple of laps left, he appeared primed to make the outside pass on McLaughlin that would give him the lead.
Unfortunately however, Max got the sign somewhere that he had better move up the track and as Decker raced down the back chute, McLaughlin moved up the track just in the nick of time to cut Decker off and while Billy tried to make a cross over move on the last lap, it was too late and McLaughlin would take the win, one that didn't quite feel right to some of us. Maresca would made the charge of the night as he would march forward from nineteenth to third with Mat Williamson next in line. Sheppard would fight his way from the back of the pack to complete the top five.
Late Models would then wrap up the program as their forty lapper was conducted in the wee hours of the morning with a surprisingly good crowd still on hand. Dale McDowell would lead the early laps in his best run so far of the week and after taking last night off. However, the two most consistently fast drivers of the week, Devin Moran and Bobby Pierce, were soon dominating the action. Moran was able to drive into the lead with Pierce moving into second and it looked like another epic battle between the two might break out once again.
However, following a lap thirty yellow when Scott Bloomquist hit the wall, Moran was able to power away and open up the biggest lead he had held through the race as he drove home untouched for the win, the first of the week despite consistent runs. Pierce would finish a solid second ahead of McLaughlin, a hard charging Strickler and Dennis Erb with his first top five of the week.
It was an eventful night for Pierce as he had to make six time trial laps before his transponder would finally record a speed and then he failed tech when his deck height was too high and he was penalized one row for the start of his heat race because of that. That was not much of a penalty in my eyes but that is the way that the WoO handles this.
The heavy track conditions, a long week of bumpy track conditions, natural mechanical failure and a weather forecast not the most positive caused a number of drivers to pack up early on Thursday and McCreadie, O'Neal, Ashton Winger and Moyer all headed home early with perhaps others to follow.
In the Gator Pond, the tally there continued to be three, all looking hungry and on the prowl for a delicious meal.
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