$25K, a clock and a crown up for grabs at Martinsville
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[/media-credit]The Virginia is for Racing Lovers 300 set for Sunday, Oct 21 at Martinsville Speedway. Come see 42 cars take the green with one goal, to win the clock. The infamous grandfather clock has been a longstanding traditional trophy given to Martinsville Speedway race winners for many years. For the Late Model racers that are here this weekend , it may be their only chance to earn one. Many of these racers will never compete at a higher level in the NASCAR ranks, but are highly competitive in the Late Model world.
To compliment the prestigious trophy, a nice check for $25,000 also goes to the winner. It will be a much larger payday than most of these teams are used to. Many weekly short tracks only pay $1,500 to $2,000 to win, so this weekends purse will definitely go a long way to recover some of the cost the teams incur during the season.
Another interesting prize for this weekends race will be the crown, yes and actual crown, given to the Virginia Triple Crown winner. The Triple Crown consist of three major Late Model races in the state of Virginia throughout the year. The Triple Crown tracks are South Boston, Langley Speedway, and wrapping up at Martinsville. Points are awarded at each event, with the driver accumulating the most points in the three races being crowned the champion. In addition to an actual crown, the winner champion will also receive a $5,000 bonus check and of course bragging rights!
The contenders for for the triple crown are, the leader with 83 points, CE Falk III, who was the winner of the South Boston race, Matt Bowling, the winner of the Langley event just four points back and Nick Smith, the self proclaimed underdog who is 19 points behind leader Falk. All three drivers expressed confidence at the track Saturday as they prepared for practice. Laughter erupted in the media center when referring to winning the triple crown, Falk asked Bowling, “Does that mean you bump me out of the way if I was running third?”, Bowling replied, “I would bump you out of the way if we were running tenth!”
Given all the pressure the drivers are under this weekend, they seem loose and relaxed and ready for 300 laps of competition,and with a total of 86 cars trying to secure one of the 42 starting spots, it will be very tough 300 laps of competition.
Alex Bowman wins Kansas Lottery 98.9 in thrilling late race pass; Chris Buescher wins championship
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[/media-credit]Alex Bowman would take the lead with 15 laps to go in a thrilling three-wide pass by Grant Enfinger and Brennan Poole and never look back, taking the win in the Kansas Lottery 98.9 for his fourth victory of the season.
“Cool to get another one,” Bowman said in victory lane. “It’s been awhile. Good to have everyone at Cunningham Motorsports behind me.”
Meanwhile, Chris Buescher would come home solidly in the top 10 to win the championship. The 19-year-old becomes the youngest series champion, bringing home the first championship for the Roulo Brothers after having a consistant season. Buescher would win the championship, 75 points ahead of nine-time series champion Frank Kimmel.
“This is definitely exciting,” Prosper, Texas native said afterwards. “It’s definitely going to take a little while for this one to sink in. It’s hard to race that way, trying to conserve tires. We had a couple issues, but I was just trying to do everything I could so nothing crazy happened there. Hats off to the Roulo Brothers and Roush Fenway. David Ragan’s been a huge part of my career, and there are a lot of others that mean a lot to my career.”
On-track, it’d be Bowman stealing the headlines as he would win his sixth pole of the year with a new track record as a result of the repave. Bowman would lead the opening 60 laps, before falling back to eighth after a pit stop under caution. He would work his way through the field, passing Kimmel for third with 17 laps to go.
With 15 laps to go, Brennan Poole would get alongside Grant Enfinger for the lead off of turn four. As they came across the start-finish line, Bowman pulled down to the apron to make it three-wide. He would clear Enfinger going into turn one, and then cleared Poole in the middle of the corner.
There’d be a late caution with 14 laps to go as Chris Windom’s left rear tire flew off, causing him to make contact with Brennan Davis and then the wall. Windom’s loose tire hit Nelson Canache’s car, causing a crack in the lexan windshield, as well as hood damage.
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[/media-credit]The restart would come with six laps to go and Bowman would get a good restart, putting a second between himself and Enfinger with two laps to go take the victory. As a result, Bowman would take home Rookie of the Year honors.
“That’s a cool thing to win,” Bowman said. “We really thought we had a shot at the championship, but we had a lot of bad luck this year. Hopefully we can get some things lined up for next year.”
Kevin Swindell would pass Enfinger on the last lap to bring home his Venturini Motorsports Toyota in the second position.
“The first part, we were really worried about the tire game and trying to make sure we were there at the end,” Swindell said. “We knew we had a good piece once the fuel ran off. We got our self buried a little deeper than we wanted, but made it exciting at the end.”
Enfinger would finish third after being the only driver to take two tires on lap 60 under a round of yellow flag pit stops.
“We definitely wanted to be in victory lane right now,” Enfinger said. “We’ve worked so hard, but come so close. but a great run for us. Once we got up there, I felt we had a good car, but couldn’t get anywhere beyond fifth with the dirty air.”
Enfinger added that it was a good decision to take two tires, but he just couldn’t hold off the field.
There’d be a scary incident right off the top in the race as on lap three, Chad Boat would get a little sideways, come across the track and contact from Matt Lofton would send Boat up on his roof and over. Chad Hackenbracht was also collected in the incident.
“I just got loose on the outside of the 17 (Buescher) – I think the air of his car took the air off of my car,” Boat said afterwards.
“Well it looked like the 52 (Boat) got loose coming off of two,” Lofton said. “When he got sideways, he was just blocking up both lanes and didn’t really have anywhere to go.
“I’ve been disappointed in these plate races that the ARCA has ran this year. You have to run wide-open and it doesn’t bring the speed down much, making it hard to drive. When something like this happens, you don’t have any control in these situations. Glad to see he is okay.”
Ricky Ehrgott would also make contact with the wall on lap 60 after his right front tire went flat going into turn three.
John Wes Townley started the day in the top five and was running third when he got loose off turn four and got into the wall on lap 71.
“Just got really free,” Townley said. “I was complaining the run before about it being really loose. For whatever reason, we didn’t tighten the car up. We definitely had us a top three car. We definitely had a shot for the win.”
