Josh Richards
After a rain delay of more than 24 hours, the Wrisco Industries Winter Nationals resumed its originally scheduled Wednesday night program following Thursday’s feature at the East Bay Raceway Park. Josh Richards earned the win in the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series-sanctioned event at the Tampa, FL facility. The Shinnston, WV driver earned $7,000 for his efforts in a race shown live by MavTV Plus.
Brandon Sheppard set fast time in Group A qualifying after he toured the third-mile clay oval in 14.385 seconds to better the efforts of Josh Richards, Brian Shirley, Dennis Erb Jr., and Bobby Pierce.
Mark Whitener topped Group B time-trials with a lap of 14.263 to beat out Jimmy Owens, Brandon Overton, Kyle Bronson, and Tanner English.
Brandon Sheppard would start the feature from the pole after he took the win in the night’s first heat by besting Dennis Erb Jr., and Tim McCreadie while Bobby Pierce outran Josh Richards and Frank Heckenast Jr. in the second preliminary.
Wil Herrington was the victor in the third heat ahead of Boom Briggs and Brian Shirley.
Mark Whitener would start the main event from the outside of the front row after he took the fourth heat ahead of Kyle Bronson and Devin Moran then Jimmy Owens grabbed the win in the fifth heat over Hudson O’Neal and Chase Junghans.
Brandon Overton took the sixth and final heat by beating out Tyler Erb and Jonathan Davenport.
Tony Jackson Jr. and Rick Eckert transferred to the feature out of the first B-main just before the rains came and ended the show on Wednesday. Billy Moyer Jr. and John Baker made the show out of the second B-main that ran on Thursday then Tanner English and Blair Nothdurft were the drivers to make the main event out of the final B-main.
On the initial attempt to start the 40-lap feature third-starting Pierce was involved in a single car incident that brought out a caution and sent the No. 32 to the tail of the field.
When the race got underway, Whitener took the lead with Owens, Sheppard, Richards and Herrington following. After the completion of the second lap, Sheppard went for a spin to bring out a yellow flag. Under the caution, top-5 running Herrington pulled into the pit area with a flat tire.
At that point, Whitener led Owens, Richards, Overton and McCreadie.
On lap 3, Richards moved around Owens for second then Overton went to fourth after passing Owens one lap later. Another yellow flag would wave on lap 5 when several cars running in the back half of the field were collected in a chain reaction accident.
A lap 7 restart provided Richards with an opportunity get around Whitener for the lead while Dennis Erb Jr. surged to fourth just before another caution flag was displayed on lap 8.
Overton moved to second on the ensuing restart, pushing Whitener back to fourth. McCreadie and Erb battle for fourth just behind the lead trio as O’Neal rose to sixth. The race then settled into a rhythm with the top-6 in single-file formation in the bottom groove.
The leaders ran into slower traffic on lap 20 which allowed Overton to close in on Richards. The race leader then began to pull away after clearing lapped traffic as the race approached the 10-to-go mark.
However, a caution would be shown to the field on lap 29 when the fourth running machine of McCreadie slowed with a flat tire.
Richards pulled away once the race went back to green flag conditions but the third-running car of Whitener suffered a flat tire to bring out a caution five five laps remaining as tires continued to be a big part of the story.
A multi-car incident on lap 37 brought another caution flag with a number of drivers bringing their cars to the attention of crew members for tire changes. Just after Richards took the white flag, contact from another car sent English backing hard into the turn one wall to bring out another yellow flag.
Finally, Richards was able to beat the pack to the checkered flag to collect his first win of the season for his Clint Bowyer Racing team.
“I was so frustrated in that first race,” Richards explained in his victory lane interview with MavTV Plus. “I felt like we had a really good car but we had to take a provisional and we got up through there a little bit but we just ended up destroying our primary car. This car, it’s the first laps that it’s made. Now I’m actually kind of glad we crashed the other one so it feels really good.”
Feature Finish: 1. Josh Richards, 2. Brandon Overton, 3. Hudson O’Neal, 4. Brian Shirley, 5. Devin Moran, 6. Ricky Thornton Jr., 7. Frank Heckenast Jr., 8. Kyle Bronson, 9. Brandon Sheppard, 10. Jimmy Owens, 11. Rick Eckert, 12. Dennis Erb Jr., 13. Tyler Erb, 14. Billy Moyer Jr., 15. Tim McCreadie, 16. John Baker, 17. Earl Pearson Jr., 18. Tanner English, 19. Chase Jinghans, 20. Mark Whitener, 21. Kyle Strickler, 22. Bobby Pierce, 23. Jonathan Davenport, 24. Boom Briggs, 25. Tony Jackson Jr., 26. Wil Herrington, 27. Mike Marlar, 28. Blair Nothdurft
