Shane Clanton dominated at Tri-County
The Southern Nationals Bonus Series ventured to Tri-County Race Track on Friday night to kick off its 2018 season. At the end of the evening, it was Shane Clanton who turned in a dominating performance and took the checkered flag along with the $3,000 first prize from the Ray Cook-owned Brasstown, NC track.
Clanton set the pace in Group A qualifying and overall with a lap of 12.536 seconds around the quarter-mile clay oval to beat out Austin Smith, David Payne, Kenny Collins and Aaron Ridley. Those cars would line up for the feature on the inside of each row.
Canadian Ricky Weiss proved to be the fastest in Group B time-trials when he posted a lap in 12.743 seconds around the speedway’s high banks to top Casey Roberts, Jamie Oliver, Tyler Bruening and Shanon Buckingham. Those cars would form the outside lane of each row on the starting grid for the main event.
At the start of the 40-lap feature it was Clanton who immediately took command of the race with Weiss, Roberts, Oliver and Bruening trailing. The No. 25 machine quickly built a lead of several car lengths, leaving the rest of the pack to battle for positions behind the front runner.
Roberts began to harass Weiss for the runner-up spot early on in the going while Payne worked on Bruening in hopes of moving himself into the top-5. Even with Clanton working his way through slower traffic by the sixth lap, the pursuing cars were unable to make up any significant distance.
The first yellow flag of the night waved on lap 11 when Buckingham suffered a flat tire and slowed on track. On the ensuing restart, the top-3 of Clanton, Weiss and Roberts quickly broke away from the rest of the field with Clanton continuing to show the way.
Once again, slower traffic proved to be the only hindrance for the race leader as the fight continued to be behind him. Shawn Chastain, Payne and Kenny Collins waged war over the fifth position throughout the middle stages of the feature.
A lap 16 caution occurred when Robby Moses spun in the fourth turn. On the restart, a multi-car incident brought another yellow before a lap could be completed. The most significant of those involved in that melee was the top-10 running car of Austin Smith.
Following that final yellow flag, Clanton controlled the pace and drove on to the win relatively unchallenged. It was his second checkered flag of the season after having won an unsanctioned event at Senoia Raceway earlier this month.
Feature Finish: 1. Shane Clanton, 2. Ricky Weiss, 3. Casey Roberts, 4. Shawn Chastain, 5. Jamie Oliver, 6. David Payne, 7. Tyler Bruening, 8. Kenny Collins, 9. Aaron Ridley, 10. Brent Dixon, 11. Benji Hicks, 12. Shanon Buckingham, 13. Robby Moses, 14. Payton Freeman, 15. Chicky Barton, 16. Joey Standridge, 17. Craig Greer, 18. Austin Smith, 19. Jason Croft, 20. Randy Nichols, 21. Kip Cochran
