Fayetteville, AR (August 8, 2011)- 19 Topless Gen 4’s rolled into the newly remodeled PDR v2 Speedway tonight with BLS_JSN looking to be the 3rd driver to win both legs of a track.
Heat 1 kicked off with Ice coming from the 6th spot and picking up the win. Rac and Tony would make contact but it would be Rac who was able to come home with the final transfer spot.
Heat 2 would see a bit of a surprise as J0Show was able to keep the Rain away and pick up the win. Rain would finish 2nd. D5 was looking for a transfer spot but would be collected in a wreck sending him to the C-Main.
Wheel was able to run away with heat 3 posting the fastest laps of the night so far. Slammer coming off his 2nd place finish on Thursday took the 2nd transfer spot.
The C-Main would see a stacked field go at it as D5 would get the win followed by D49, Bullet, and BLS_JSN. Surprisingly VLR Shock would not make it out of the C-Main.
B34 looked impressive in the B as B42 and DB would also transfer. The real battle would be for the 4th spot as D5, Tony, Bullet, and Thursday’s winner BLS_JSN would fight it out but in the end it would be Tony grabbing the final transfer spot.
By the time the A-Main rolled around the crowd was already in frenzy from the B-Main. Ice would lead the field to the green flag. Ice was able to clear J0 but it was quickly apparent that it was Wheel that was going to be a challenge.
Wheel pulled beside Ice on lap 4 and they would remain side by side for the next 8 laps until Wheel was finally able to get a run and clear him for the lead. The constant side by side battle allowed Rain to get in the picture as he immediately put pressure on Ice for the 2nd spot.
Meanwhile Slammer had moved from his 6th spot to 4th after getting around J0 on lap 9. On lap 12 Ice would be able to get the lead back after Wheel scraped the wall on the back straight. It would however be short lived as Wheel would once again use the bottom groove to get around Ice.
A great 3-way battle between J0, B42, and B34 would immerge 16 laps into the race. These 3 would have swap a little paint and the 5th spot several as none of them was able to break away. By lap 23 Wheel had opened up a bit of a lead on Ice and Rain as the 2 WFO teammates started to do battle for the 2nd spot.
Ice would stay committed to the high side and while Wheel and Rain was glued to the bottom. After some contact between Ice and Rain Wheel was able to break free and started to increase his lead. Lap 24 Rain would finally clear Ice for the 2nd spot and would try to run Wheel back down.
Ice would show some strength getting back to Rain and they would once again go side by side. Back in the battle for the 5th spot B34 and B42 had gotten around J0 but he remained right there. B34 was using the momentum from the top to keep just ahead of B42 and J0 was showing some patients and was looking for the right moment to try to get around them.
By lap 35 Wheel had increased his lead to about a second as Ice and Rain remained side by side. The WFO teammates continued to race each other instead of trying to work together and Wheel loved every second of it as his lead continued to increase as well as his lap times.
Slammer used the constant battling for 2nd to catch up to them and would start to do battle with Rain. By doing this it would allow Ice some breathing room for the final 10 laps of the race. Slammer and Rain would swap the 3rd spot several times in the final 10 laps.
In the end though it was Wheel who dominated the show and won by over 2.89 seconds and won $10,000. In a scary moment Wheel began driving backwards toward oncoming cars following the finish. He was so far ahead that the other drivers had yet to cross the finish line and nearly hit several cars head on before swerving at the last second.
Ice motored home in 2nd with Slammer getting around Rain for the 3rd spot and B42 with an impressive showing grabbing a top 5. 6th spot went to Tony after having to come from the C-Main. 7th would be B34 followed by J0. DB finished 9th in his 1st start of the year in the Lucas Oil Series and Rac would only make 5 laps before having an engine failure.
We caught up with Wheel after the in Victory lane. “Man it feels good to be back in victory lane again. I had a monster under the hood tonight and had a great setup for the bottom and that was the key to the win tonight. I got around Ice but made a few mistakes and he was hanging around but once I got away from them I hit my marks and was flying.”
Ice seemed happy with his results as well, “I had a really good car tonight and drove the tires off of it but Wheel was in a class all by himself. I hung with him for a while but once Rain and I started to fight it out he got away and there was no catching him.”
Slammer also was pleased with his 3rd place finish, “I had a great week here finishing 2nd on Thursday and 3rd tonight. Rain and I had a hell of a battle for 3rd for the last 10 laps and I was able to get around him. I don’t think there was much contact but if there was I wanted to tell him sorry.”
We also got an interview with Tony after coming back from the C-Main. “Man I felt like I got hosed in the heat but the officials didn’t see it my way and I had to scratch and claw to make it to the A-Main. I did want to apologize to the Lucas officials for my outburst…I’ve had a rough week and this just seemed to bring it to a head.”
Next week get your overalls on as we will head to Illinois to run at the famed Farmer City 2k10 race track.
On a side note Lucas Oil Speedway has been completed and it will be put on the schedule at some point. So please make sure you check the schedule in the next few weeks for the changes.