Night number two of the Wieland Winternationals at the Ocala Speedway saw another closely fought Late Model feature, and on this night the slower traffic became a friend, not an enemy for Brandon Sheppard as he held off all challenges from Hudson O'Neal to earn a thirty lap feature win and pocket seven grand for his efforts.
Wednesday night's show was the second and final race for the Lucas Oil Late Model Series that was not a point paying race but despite that, the field of drivers increased by four to forty. While Jonathan Davenport unloaded his car and polished it up, he eventually loaded it back up and became a spectator. First time drivers that did race included Daniel Hilsabeck and Cory Lawler who both watched on Tuesday along with Ricky Thornton Jr and Eli Johnson. A few more drivers are still expected to arrive when the Lucas points begin on Thursday and the purses start to get larger.
The program would be exactly the same as on Tuesday with time trials to set the running order of the heats, of which there would be four, and then followed by a pair of B Features and the main event, set again for thirty laps.
As one of the last cars to qualify, Garrett Alberson turned the quick lap at 14.141. Unfortunately for Alberson, after that things went downhill for him and while he would finish eighth in the main, that was not what he was looking for given his qualifying effort. Brandon Overton topped the first group with a lap at 14.288 seconds and later would get a top five finish in the main.
Not surprisingly, five of the six qualifying events saw the winner come from the front row with the lone exception being one of the B Features that Thornton Jr won from the second row but just the fact that he had to again run a B feature indicates that his early season struggles were continuing.
The feature race, which again started twenty four drivers because of no provisional openings granted for the non point race, was not quite as smooth as Tuesday night's nonstop main. The yellow waved four times with the third one being the most significant.
While the track crew put less water on the track than they had done on Tuesday, the cooling temperatures and building humidity kept the racing surface blinding fast with the inside lane occasionally slicking up. Most of the preliminaries saw the outside row provide an advantage and the feature was no different as Kyle Bronson got the jump on Sheppard to take the early lead.
Bronson was running strong and was very motivated to earn a win in his home state as he led the opening six laps with Sheppard chasing him. By this time, the yellow had already flown twice including a Tyler Erb hammering of the wall that ended his night.
The green came back out and Bronson again held the edge over Sheppard with O'Neal moving into third. Suddenly, the race changed dramatically as Bronson slowed on the front chute and as he tried to move out of the way, Sheppard and he came together hard. Sheppard lost several spots but the yellow saved him for the restart while Bronson was done with apparent rear end failure.
Sheppard again took the lead with O'Neal, Overton, Devin Moran and Clay Harris in the top five at the halfway point. Overton briefly got past O'Neal for second but Hudson was able to return the favor and retake second.
O'Neal began to move in on Sheppard as he closed the distance on the leader. One last yellow flew, bunching the field with a dozen laps to go. Sheppard again pulled away but before long, he had caught some of the slower traffic and O'Neal began to press him again. The laps were running down and O'Neal was looking for an opening to make a pass but on this night, it was Sheppard that worked the lapped traffic the best.
He was able to find an opening and race around the top side past Ross Robinson while O'Neal got stuck on the bottom and Sheppard was able to lengthen his lead on the final circuit and drive home for the win. Moran finished a close third with Overton and a consistent Harris completing the top five.
While there was just a single car that was lapped, his presence was key to the outcome and there were seven drivers that did not finish.
While the program did not proceed quite as smoothly as it had on Tuesday night, it was far from a dragged out event with the final checkered waving about a quarter to 9, local time.
Perhaps because it was a bit warmer than Tuesday or perhaps at least in part because folks saw how fast the Tuesday night program was clicked off and they decided to chance it, the crowd was significantly larger than it had been for the opening show. With good weather promised the next couple of days, the crowds should be even larger for the higher paying shows just ahead.
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