The fifth and final leg of the Wieland Winter Nationals was held on Saturday night, February 8th at Ocala Speedway on the edge of Ocala Florida. It was another gorgeous February day, as they have been here all week and a reported record crowd was jammed into the venerable speedway to watch the drivers fight over what was also announced as a record purse and a record top payoff to the drivers of the Lucas Oil Late Model Series.
In a fifty lap feature race that went through periods of boredom and frustration, the last twenty laps were "golden" as Davenport and Moran battled for the top spot, trading lanes on the track and passing strategies before Moran got the better of things in the late going and secured a popular victory.
Forty seven drivers signed in to race on Saturday night, a high water number for the week with only a couple drivers who pulled out earlier this week not attempting to race.
The night gave all ear marks of it being an interesting night as early as during hot laps. While practicing to get maximum speed out of their cars, both Matt Nailor and Austin Smith hammered the outside wall and were done with extensive damage for the night. Chase Junghans also had trouble during hot laps and parked his car too. And during time trials one more driver was eliminated when Jason Jack also tried to knock down the outside wall.
The track was also giving fits to those drivers able to complete qualifying attempts and even though Garrett Alberson was quickest overall at 14.397 seconds and Davenport was quickest in the second group, there were a number of top running drivers that timed in poorly and would have to be doing some fancy driving to make the show through a heat race. Some of those included Kyle Bronson, Ryan Gustin, Bobby Pierce, Brandon Overton, Dennis Erb and Hudson O' Neal. None of the first three mentioned actually even made the show with Pierce so frustrated he didn't even bother to make an attempt in a B Feature. The first part of the program was quite unpredictable but come feature time, the cream would rise to the top.
Twenty five drivers took the green flag for the feature race with Davenport using the outside, as many drivers have all week, to get the jump and take the early lead. Ricky Thornton Jr didn't want go back to second, but Davenport was just a little bit quicker in the early going. Brandon Sheppard rode in third in the early going with Overton and Alberson next in line.
With sixteen laps complete Carson Ferguson rolled to a halt with a flat tire, triggering a rash of yellow flags for car slowing for flat tires. The next dozen laps would see this repeated four more times and just as it seemed some hard racing was ready to break out, the yellow would fly again and slow things down.
As is the case in much of racing these days, the majority of passes occur following yellow flag periods when the fields are bunched back up and a big one happened here when following a lap twenty seven yellow for Dan Ebert's flat, Moran was able to drive around Thornton Jr. for second and then set off after leader Davenport. Thornton Jr. tried to fight back but Moran had moved up the track and found a good run off the corners using that line.
He closed in on Davenport who was married to the bottom and while Thornton Jr. tried the top from time to time, he seemed contend to let Moran have that line and try to make it work. Devin closed on Davenport several times, getting an especially good run off turn two and nearly squeezing by but each time, Davenport would hold on.
Then for several laps Moran fell back to the low line, riding in the tire tracks of Davenport. However, just when Davenport felt safe on the inside, Moran moved back to the outside and pulled up beside the leader. They exchanged cross over runs on each other and Moran edged past and then away down the front chute on lap thirty eight.
Davenport had nothing to offer in the final laps until Moran got way too high on the last corner and Davenport made it close but not close enough as Moran drove on for the win. Thornton Jr ran third just about the whole last half of the race with Overton fourth and Alberson rounding out the top five. Twenty one drivers would complete the race and only two weren't on the lead lap as the frequent yellows kept there from being many lapped or slower cars for the leaders to contend with.
Davenport will leave the Winter Nationals with the slightest of point leads over Moran and Thornton Jr with the Lucas Oil drivers not meeting to race once again until the end of March when they head North to Ohio and Indiana.
With the Late Model portion of Winter Nationals complete, there are many people to thank. Promoter Bubba Clem and track manage Tom Bean head the list along with all the hard working staff members of the Ocala Speedway plus the folks from the Lucas Oil Series and FLO Racing for their help.
And while the Late Models are done at Ocala, there is still much racing to be done before February is complete. The USAC Sprints move into Ocala with a practice session slated for Sunday of this week and full racing programs to be held on Wednesday through Saturday as Florida is truly the racing capital of the world this month.
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