Jason Welshan drove this car to a dominating victory at Smoky Mountain.
Jason Welshan found himself in the familiar surroundings of Victory Lane at the Smoky Mountain Speedway after Saturday night’s Crate Late Model victory while Courtney battled Courtney for Mini Stock honors.
Welshan, who has won numerous features on the Maryville, Tenn. track, began his dominant night by setting fast time in qualifying over a field of 19 cars with a time of 16.65 seconds around the 4/10 mile clay oval. The field for the feature race was set entirely by time-trials which would allow Jimmy Elliott, Adam Beeler, Greg Martin, Brian Courtney and Jensen Ford to follow the pole winner to the green flag.
At the start of the feature, Welshan immediately showed that he would be difficult to beat as he roared out to an early lead. Elliott, Beeler and Martin were left to fight for the runner-up spot in the early laps of the main event.
Several times throughout the first half of the race, Beeler and Martin found themselves racing side-by-side for position. On lap 18, those two actually split to go around Elliott as the three negotiated heavy traffic while relegating the ‘Mohawk Warrior’ to 4th. At the same time, Ryan King got rolling out of his 10th starting spot to knock on the door of the top-5.
After a wave off of the initial start because of a crash by Mike Moore, the race stayed green until the 20th of its scheduled 25 laps. But even a yellow flag was not enough to provide the competition with a way to get around Welshan.
At the finish, it was Jason Welshan winning over Adam Beeler, Greg Martin, Jimmy Elliott, Jake Teague, Ryan King and Brian Courtney.
Michael Courtney celebrating Friday’s win at 411.
The Mini Stock feature proved to be a family affair as 13-year-old Kyle Courtney battled that class’s most dominant driver in the east Tennessee region so far in 2014.
Kyle and Michael Courtney started on the front row after each won his respective heat race earlier in the night.
Kyle Courtney went immediately to the lead at the start of the feature with Michael Courtney staying right in his tire tracks at every turn. Those two drivers pulled away from rest of the pack, especially after serious contender Nick Perry fell out on lap 5 while running a close 3rd.
A caution, which ultimately turned to a red flag, waved on lap 10 when the cars of Ray Simpson and Josh Davis became entangled after what appeared to be a relatively harmless spin. Due to the amount of time involved in separating those cars, the race was shortened so that a green/white/checkered finish would settle the issue after the red flag.
Once the cars were ordered to re-fire by track officials, it became apparent that something was wrong with Kyle Courtney’s car. Ultimately his machine had to be pushed behind the pit wall.
Michael Courtney went on to win ahead of Jason Carter, William Talent, Josh Davis and Debbie Singleton.
