Brandon Overton is on a roll
The grind that is the Schaeffer’s Oil Southern Nationals continued on Saturday night as the midsummer mini-series contested its seventh of twelve scheduled races at the Screven Motor Speedway. When the show was completed it was Brandon Overton who drove to his second consecutive and third overall series win to earn the winner’s trophy from the Sylvania, GA facility. The Evans, GA driver was rewarded with a payment of $10,053 in a race broadcast live by DirtonDirt.com.
Ross Bailes was fastest in Group A qualifying with a lap of 14.903 seconds around the 3/8 mile clay oval to outperform John Hemderson, Mark Whitener and Jake Knowles.
Donald McIntosh led the way in Group B time-trials by clocking in with a time of 14.930 seconds to beat out Zack Mitchell, Brandon Overton and Pearson Lee Williams.
Ross Bailes led the field to the finish line in the first heat race ahead of Mark Whitener, Cla Knight and Michael Page while John Henderson took the win in the second preliminary over Jake Knowles, Trent Ivey and Jeff Smith.
Brandon Overton showed the way in the third heat race by beating Donald McIntosh, Wil Herrington and Matthew Nance just before Pearson Lee Williams took the checkered flag ahead of Chris Madden, Zack Mitchell and Brian Connor in the fourth and final heat.
At the start of the 53-lap feature Overton went where he would stay for the duration of the race. He was followed in the early laps by Bailes, Whitener, Williams and McIntosh. Knight moved by McIntosh on lap 3 to make his way into the top-5 as Overton went about the business of pulling away from the field.
A lap 13 caution for Jimmy Sharpe Jr. allowed for a restart that would see Overton and Bailes break away from a raging three-wide battle for positions 3-5 between Williams, Knight and Whitener.
A yellow flag for a flat tire on the Knowles machine on lap 20 again slowed the pace. When green flag action resumed, Whitener went to third with Madden moving up to fourth.
Whitener would go to second on lap 22 as the top-4 of Overton, Whitener, Bailes and Madden settled in and pulled away from their competitors. Overton went even further by building his advantage even more over his closest rivals.
Late in the race Whitener closed a bit on Overton in traffic but ultimately it would be the No. 76 machine that would cruise under the checkered flag for the win.
Feature Finish: 1. Brandon Overton, 2. Mark Whitener, 3. Ross Bailes, 4. Chris Madden, 5. Cla Knight, 6. John Baker, 7. Pearson Lee Williams, 8. Wil Herrington, 9. Trent Ivey, 10. Jeff Smith, 11. Donald McIntosh, 12. Matthew Nance, 13. John Henderson, 14. Ahnna Parkhurst, 15. Scott Shirey, 16. Brian Connor, 17. Larry Grube, 18. Jake Knowles, 19. Zack Mitchell, 20. Dalton Polston, 21. Michael Page, 22. Tyler Millwood, 23. Jimmy Sharpe Jr., 24. Mike Akeson
