Billy Franklin took advantage of Ashton Winger’s misfortune
Ashton Winger appeared to turn in a dominating performance to score a Southern All-Stars Dirt Racing Series victory on the first of two nights in the ‘Battle at the Beach’ event at Southern Raceway, but after his car failed post-race technical inspection by coming up light at the scales, it was Billy Franklin who claimed his first series victory.
The Rocket Chassis driver from Calera, Alabama earned $3,000 for the win at the Milton, Florida track in a race shown live by raceXR.plus.
Saturday night’s feature will pay its winner $10,000.
A total of 24 cars were signed in for competition
Qualifying Results: 1. Ryan Crane( 14.644), 2. Joseph Joiner, 3. Ashton Winger, 4. Bo Slay, 5. Billy Franklin, 6. Tyler Clem, 7. G.R. Smith, 8. Parker Martin, 9. Brenden Smith, 10. Dalton Cook, 11. Jeremy Pate, 12. Caleb Gay, 13. J.C. Wilson, 14. Shay Miller, 15. Kendell Franklin, 16. Adam Boyd, 17. J.R. Moseley, 18. Steven Jernigan, 19. Stephen Brantley, 20. Matthew Brocato, 21. Bud Thompson, 22. Michael Franklin, 23. Dan Cox, 24. Tim Anderson
Feature Re-cap: When the 30-lap main event took the green flag it was Crane, Winger and Billy Franklin fighting for the lead with Joiner and Smith trailing. A spin involving Kendell Franklin brought out a yellow flag just after the completion of the first lap.
On the first attempt at a restart, contact between Franklin and Crane sent Crane spinning with other cars also getting involved. The field was re-set as it had been before the restart.
When the race finally went back to green with one lap complete Crane continued to lead but Winger was able to take command while Franklin also moved around Crane to grab the runner-up position. Crane then spun on lap 3 to bring out another caution. At the time of the yellow, Winger was leading Franklin, Clem, Cook and Martin.
A multi-car crash halted the lap 3 restart. After the second lap 3 restart, Winger maintained the lead with Franklin running second followed by Cook, Clem and G.R. Smith. Winger began to pull away by lap 10 with a furious battle raging further back in the top-5.
Cook moved in on Franklin to challenge for second at the race’s halfway point. Winger had disappeared by that point building a lead of more than five seconds with 10 laps remaining. Over the closing laps, there was no match for Winger as he drove away from the pack on his way to the checkered flag.
However, the No.12 car was light at the scales during post-race inspection which handed the win to Billy Franklin.
Feature Results: 1. Ashton Winger, 2. Billy Franklin, 3. Dalton Cook, 4. G.R. Smith, 5. Tyler Clem, 6. Parker Martin, 7. J.R. Moseley, 8. Joseph Joiner, 9. Brenden Smith, 10. Steven Jernigan, 11. Adam Boyd, 12. Michael Franklin, 13. Bo Slay, 14. Ryan Crane, 15. J.C. Wilson, 16. Matthew Brocato, 17. Shay Miller, 18. Kendell Franklin, 19. Dan Cox, 20. Tim Andrews, 21. Jeremy Pate, 22. Caleb Gay, 23. Bud Thompson, 24. Stephen Brantley
Please consider also reading:
Rich’s Ramblings: Not so much ‘Racing for the sake of Racing’ anymore
Respond to this post on Twitter by following @RichardAllenIDR and @MichaelRMoats or by liking the InsideDirtRacing.com Facebook page.
Also, NASCAR and pavement racing fans can check out InsideCircleTrack.
