17 cars made their way to Muskogee Oklahoma for the inaugural race for the Lucas Oil sponsored series at Thunderbird Speedway. Several notables were not able to make it such as VLR_Wheel, BLS_F1, BLS_Jammin, and JFR*4 due to a bridge collapse on I-40. Luckily no one was hurt.
Due to a random draw Ice would start on the pole for heat 1, D5 would be sitting pole in heat 2, and BLS_00 sat on the pole in heat 3. Heat 1 would kick off with Ice leading the field the 1st 4 laps until D15 would find Ice’s back bumper almost spinning him. Rain would use this to move from 3rd to the lead and would not look back as Ice would remain on his bumper but finish 2nd. 8x would finish 3rd and D15 would finish 4th.
Heat 2 would be all D5 as he would start on the pole as Rac and Josh would battle it out for the 2nd transfer spot. Rac would pull away at the end and Josh would come home 3rd. BLS_34 would come home in 4th. In heat 3 BLS_00 would start on the pole and would have a great race with D11 and Shock.
On lap 5 Shock would pull to the bottom making it 3 wide and D11 would pull a slide job on 00 pushing him back to 3rd. Shock would be able to hold on for the win with D11 finishing 2nd for the final transfer spot. BLS_00 would finish 3rd and BLS_42 could come finish 4th.
In “B” Main action 8x would start on the pole and not look back. BLS_42 would motor home to a 2nd place finish with BLS_00 and BLS_JSN all getting the transfer spots to make the 75 lap feature. Lucas Oil would honor the firefighters with the inaugural race of the Lucas Oil Summer Sizzler Series would kick off with the Firefighter 75. Rain would start on the point with D5 on the outside.
Defending race champion Shock would start the race in 3rd. Rain would get the jump on D5 and Shock would find his way past him as well. Lap 2 would see the 1st incident of the evening as Rac, D11, and BLS_00 would go 3 wide going into turn 3. D11 was not able to hold his line and got up into 00 sending him spinning and BLS_42 would collect him and 00 would call it an early night.
Up front Rain would be running much harder than he wanted to that early in the race because he would be in a dog fight with Shock, D5, and Ice all nose to tail and side by side, making it a great 4-way battle for the lead. B-Main winner 8x was able to move from 7th to 5th by lap 4. On lap 14 Rain, Shock, and Ice would start to put a little distance between themselves and D5.
On lap 19 Ice would make a mistake going into turn 1 and D5 would close and an incredible rate and would hit Ice in the rear sending him into Shock. Ice would hit Shock again in the left front of his car and was able to straighten him out. This however allowed D5 and 8x to move to 2nd and 3rd but more importantly Rain would be able to break away from the pack.
Shock would quickly recover from his near wreck and get back to 3rd and get right on the back bumper of D5. By lap 30 Rain was leading comfortably and D5 and Shock would be in a battle for 2nd. 8x was sitting 4th and Ice rounded out the top 5. Rac sat in 6th. D11 was running 7th and JSN would round out the field running in 8th.
The next 19 laps would see a great battle for the 2nd spot between D5 and Shock as these 2 would swap the 2nd spot several times along with quite a bit of paint. This would however be a bad thing for Shock. On lap 51 he would cut a tire ending his night early and with a 9th place finish.
Ice was able to get around 8x and would pick up where Shock left off and would continue to battle with D5 for the remainder of the race. On lap 61 D11 was able to make the pass on 8x but it would be short lived as his tires wore out and 8x was able to pass him back on lap 69. Ice was able to clear D5 on lap 62 but D5, being the crafty veteran, was able to hang in Ice’s draft and keep it close. It would pay off as ice would make another mistake on lap 67 and D5 would close off the bottom and get to the 2nd spot.
Ice would however make the pass back on a slingshot move on lap 69 and move back to 2nd. D5 would give it 1 more shot on lap 73 but Ice would slam the door shut on the bottom. Rain would come home as the winner after pulling away by an impressive 6 seconds for the win.
Ice would come home in 2nd completing the WFO 1-2 sweep. D5 settled for 3rd and 8x would make an impressive statement finishing 4th while D11 would round out the top 5. BLS_42 was able to bring it home 6th with BLS_JSN would finish with a beat up car in 7th. Rac would round out the cars on the track by finishing 8th. Shock would be credited with 9th after a cut tire and BLS_00 would get 10th after a lap 2 crash.
Rain was celebrating with his new baby Elizabeth in victory lane. “What a great night, it was a dog fight with the 4 of us and it looked like Ice got into Shock and that gave me some breathing room. Then I was able to just run a fast smooth line and never looked back.
Ice would come and congratulate his teammate, “Once Rain was able to break away he was gone. I was just trying to finish 2nd and Karl gave me all I wanted and then some. We ran side by side for what seemed like 1000 laps and he never touched me.”
Karl had seen it much the same way, “Ice made some big mistakes tonight and allowed me to get around a few times. At the end I could have taken another shot at him but I figured a solid 3rd was better than wrecking us both and finishing 8th or getting docked points. Round 2 will see the Gen 4 Topless make their debut Monday at the same track and the same number of laps.