As the week rolls on, the crowds begin to get even larger and the intensity among the racers picks up, if that is even possible since it feels like they have been racing extraordinarily hard all week.
In any event, in front of a full house at East Bay Raceway Park on Thursday night, February 8th, Jimmy Owens would be the big winner as he would hold off a hard charging Jonathan Davenport after a late race restart and drive on for a ten thousand dollar, forty lap win in Lucas Oil competition, the first point race of the week here at East Bay.
Fans would get to see their limit in Late Model racing too as a rare doubleheader would finish off as the Monday night event, stretched in pieces over the last three nights, would conclude with a thirty lap main event that would see Brandon Sheppard come from the ninth starting spot to edge past fellow Illinois racer Brian Shirley to take the five grand win.
Seventy four drivers would sign in to race on Thursday night with Mark Whitener making his first appearance after fixing a car wrecked in Georgia already this year. Parker Martin and Carson Ferguson would also be on hand for the first time. Meanwhile, the Riggs Team car driven earlier this week by Jaden Frame would be wheeled by Illinois driver Jake Little. Brandon Overton, who wrecked his car last night, would instead drive a second car for the Jeff Mathews team out of the Tampa area while Mathews broke out a new Rocket. Several other drivers would also bring out second cars as with points on the line for Lucas drivers, everyone put on their serious face for Thursday night action.
The track would be in excellent shape again on Thursday which allowed the drivers to work all over the racing surface and much side by side racing was seen all night, from the first heat races right up through the two mains. And again, the only track work done after the cars hit the surface for the first time was for a bit of wheel packing by service vehicles just before the first feature race. And while it might have been a good track for the drivers, it was again plenty dirty for us in the stands but I guess at a track like this where you sit so close to the action, that is the price that must be paid. Good action for us for sure but again, not the kind of thing that your average man on the street wants to put up with which is one reason why it's so hard to get new folks to check out coming to a race.
Garrett Smith and Hudson O'Neal would be the quick qualifiers for their groups with Smith quickest overall at 14.164 seconds. Smith would actually start from the pole for both feature races and while he led for laps in both races, he wasn't able to nail down that prime finishing spot that he has been so close to hitting on this week.
Heat race action was excellent on Thursday with many good battles and until you see these drivers race up close and personal, it's hard to explain to the average fan just how hard they are racing for every second they are on the track. Yet with all this intensity, they really don't wreck a lot as they are really skilled at their craft.
The usual format would be held with six heats and three B Features set to establish the feature race line up. The lone difference was that starting on Thursday, with Lucas points on the line, the parade of provisional starters tacked on to the back of the pack would begin. Instead of twenty four cars that all raced their way into the show, there would be thirty starters, some of which are Lucas tagalongs that aren't fast enough to race their way in but Lucas would like them to keep following the circuit so they add them to the field. Lucas is certainly not the only one that does this, as most series do the same thing but I've always been a fan of really making drivers earn their way into the show.
In any event, thirty cars would take the green with Smith grabbing the initial lead from the pole. He would lead for four laps before Owens, who started to his outside, would drive by him for the top spot. These two would put on an excellent show as Smith refused to give in and would battle back with them trading the lead back and forth four times over the first half of the race.
However, other drivers were also on the move including Garrett Alberson and Jonathan Davenport who soon became a part of the lead pack. By the halfway point of the race, Owens would be the leader with Alberson and Davenport trading second back and forth as both searched around the track for the best line. Garrett would really close in on Owens and when Jimmy bogged down briefly in turn four, Alberson very nearly made the pass but got into Owens instead briefly with all continuing without problem.
This gave Davenport a clear run at the leader though, and Jonathan moved to the high side of the track where he really started making time. For all the world, he looked like he was ready to blast past Owens and take over the lead down the front stretch when Boom Briggs pulled up lame right in front of him with just two laps to go with a flat tire.
A two lap dash to the finish would be set up and Owens got away cleanly on the green and while Davenport pushed hard, Jimmy would fight him off to take the win, a victory that was popular amongst the crowd for the Tennessee veteran. Alberson would settle for third while both Ricky Thornton Jr and Hudson O'Neal would complete hard runs to the front from rows six and seven respectively to round out the top five.
Normally that would be the show and everyone would now stream towards the exits and the "real" show as everyone tried to ram their way out of the tiny East Bay Parking lots and whatever else nooks and crannies they had found to park their vehicles. However, this was not a "normal" night as we still had thirty laps of hard racing to look forward to as the evening would conclude with the thirty lap feature race which was a part of the rained out Monday night program that was made up in segments over the last three nights. It was an innovative and interesting idea that was brokered to allow the fans to see six nights of racing and also allow the drivers to race one more night. The only ones left "holding the bag' where the folks who had bought tickets for the Monday night show. While their money wasn't refunded, all those that didn't have tickets for Monday were allowed to watch the last three night's makeup action for free while their unfortunate friends paid the purse for the freeloaders. It's a good thing this is the last year for East Bay because any attempt to repeat this procedure wouldn't be met so friendly as because it is their last hurrah, management seems to have been given a free pass this year.
In any event, twenty four drivers would take the green once again for thirty laps with Smith once again taking the early lead. But he was unable to hold it for long as Devin Moran came storming up from the third row to drive under Smith and take over the top spot. He would hold the lead for a number of laps but eventually both Brian Shirley and Brandon Sheppard started to cut into his lead.
Shirley was really digging on the bottom as he raced up beside Moran and they had a good battle for the lead before Brian was able to secure it. However, shortly after the halfway point, Sheppard would come flying to the front and the two Illinois drivers would go at it with Shirley unable to hold off the charging Sheppard who would take over the lead.
Sheppard would become the fourth different leader and would pull away on the final few laps as he finally showed the speed expected out of this team. Shirley would hold on for second with Moran following him home. O'Neal and Ross Robinson, up from eleventh would complete the top five. Several of the drivers would use this last race as a paid hot lap session with the number of drivers streaming into the infield high in the closing laps. And even with all the racing we saw, the final checkered flag would wave just around 11 pm after which the fight out of the parking lot would resume.
Friday night the action will resume live and on tv with another forty lap main event as the sands in the hour glass are running out with only two nights left of Winternationals racing forever.
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