Tuesday night, February 11th the Volusia Speedway Park presented the conclusion of Volusia's part of the Winter Dirt Games for the USAC Sprint Car drivers while it was night number two for the Federated DIRTcar Nationals for the UMP Late Models.
In two quite similar races, the leader would get to the front early and then just cruise on to victory with Logan Seavey topping the Sprint Cars and Ricky Thornton Jr taking the measure of the Late Model field.
Thirty three Sprint Cars signed in to race on Tuesday night, with a big Gator trophy at stake for the overall point winner of the two nights of racing. And for the second straight night, Daison Pursley topped the field in qualifying with a quick lap of 16.275 seconds. For his efforts, Pursley would then get the privilege of starting sixth in his heat race under the USAC formula for starting races but it made no matter to him as he blew through the field to take the win, probably the best job of passing cars that was seen all night.
The Sprint Cars presented their show of four heats and a B Feature that set up their twenty five car starting field for their thirty lap main event that for the first time this week, had one provisional entrant which was Kayla Roell.
A monkey wrench was thrown into the teams' planning for the main event however, as a surprise pop up shower, the kind that Florida is famous for, hit just after the track prep crew started their routine of watering, ripping and then repacking the track for the main events. They continued to do their work as the rain fell as it never came down to the point that they had to get off the track or get stuck. However, that amount of rain, coming as it did time wise, did put more moisture back into the racing surface and the first few laps of racing were very fast before it did it's natural evolution as every track does during a racing night.
Seavey started on the pole and he strongly took off at the start putting some distance on the field quickly as Monday night winner, Kyle Cummings quickly moved up to second, getting past Jake Swanson and Briggs Danner and setting his sites on leader Seavey. A quick yellow with six laps completed slowed the field, but when racing resumed the field settled in with the top five staying pretty static for a number of laps.
As the field reached the halfway point, Seavey continued to maintain his lead, despite efforts from Cummings to close in on him. Pursley, not finding the field quite so easy to pass as in his heat race, finally worked into the top five when he got past Robert Ballou. Ballou exploded a tire with ten laps to go, slowing the action once again with Danner and Pursley both getting past Swanson to gain a spot.
Two late yellows gave Cummings his best shots at a win, the last coming just as it had the night before with the field coming to the checkers before a slowing car set up a two lap sprint to the finish.
The track was prime for a slide job contest to the finish but most played it pretty clean with no wild maneuvers taking place. Cummings gave it his best, boring low into the corners and trying to beat Seavey out of them, but he gave Seavey room to race and Logan was just a bit too fast to be caught as he drove across the line as the winner, with Cummings a close second and followed by Pursley, Danner and a charging Kale Drake who had started nineteenth. Only four drivers failed to finish the race and only three a lap behind.
There was a tie for the top point earner for the two nights but based on the tire breaker, Cummings with his Monday night feature win earned the big Gator trophy. The USAC crew will now move an hour East to the Ocala Speedway where they will wind up Winter Dirt Games with four nights of racing at Bubba's place.
The Late Models again used the UMP format with the field divided into six groups with the drivers qualifying against only the drivers in that group. Ryan Gustin was out with the first group and as the track slowed just a bit after they started pounding the track, Gustin was quick for the night at 15.492. The field of drivers was increased to fifty five on Tuesday as Jimmy Owens, Kyle Strickler, Dillon McCowan, Boom Briggs and Brenden Smith all made their Volusia debuts.
After the six heat races, three B Features would fill out the field with again, just twenty four drivers making the main as no provisional spots were open.
While Thornton Jr. started on the pole, it was Tyler Erb from the outside that got the jump and took the early lead as it seems like the outside is the place to be on starts and restarts. In fact, Thornton Jr fell back to third as Bobby Pierce also got past him before the lone yellow of the race waved with three good laps after Brenden Smith rolled to a halt. Jonathan Davenport and Brandon Overton had moved into the top five before the first yellow as the cream was rising to the surface quickly on the fast track.
Pierce opted for the inside on the Delaware restart, to which Thornton Jr said thanks as he blew right past the Illinois driver to move back into second while Pierce's bad start saw him nearly fall back to fifth before he made a strong move off turn four to regain the third spot.
Thornton Jr just seemed to be sizing up Erb, waiting for the proper time and place to make his move. He got a big run off turn four just a lap short of halfway and blew past Erb to take over the lead with the running order remaining the same as the halfway signal was given by starter Dave Farney.
After that, it was a walk in the park for Thornton Jr who pulled away to develop a comfortable lead. Only when he hit the back of the pack was he pressed slightly but he handled that and was able to maintain a comfortable lead as he flashed under the finish line to complete an impressive run.
Pierce made a banzai move on the final corner and was able to get past Erb for second with Davenport and Overton running in their same positions to the finish. Only two drivers in the field failed to finish the event.
The UMP portion of the program will conclude on Wednesday night before the World Of Outlaws Late Models take over management and procedures for the rest of the week. Wednesday night's show is a different type of event, as the field will be split into three groups with no heat races and all drivers getting to start one of the three, twenty lap feature races. Participation awards will go to those in the back of the pack that make their first feature of Speed Weeks (sarcasm alert). The Big Block Modifieds of the Super DIRTcar Series also will be on hand, opening up for their first of four nights of racing action also as the "Beasts from the Northeast" move in. DIRT Vision is the place to catch all the action at home.
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