Brandon Overton picked up his second $10,000 win in the No. 116 ride
The Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series made its annual trek to the Golden Isles Speedway in Waynesville, Georgia on Friday night for the opening race of the 2017 season. When all was said and done, it was Brandon Overton who got the jump on the competition by coming away with the $10,000 first prize. It was the Georgia native’s second $10,000 win(The Gobbler at Boyd’s) since taking over the Randy Weaver/Chip Stone ride after the retirement of Weaver last year.
Billy Moyer, Jr. began the night by setting fast time in Group A qualifying and overall with a lap of 15.423 seconds around the 4/10 mile clay oval. He was followed in that group by Brandon Sheppard, Devin Moran, Jonathan Davenport, Ricky Weiss and Jimmy Owens.
Donald McIntosh proved to be fastest in Group B time-trials with a time of 15.560 seconds. Darrell Lanigan, Boom Briggs, Josh Richards, Ryan King and Tim McCreadie followed the leader in this session.
Moyer earned the pole position for the feature race by taking the win in the first heat race ahead of Davenport and Don O’Neal while Richards would start from the outside of the front row by virtue of his victory in the fourth preliminary ahead of McIntosh and Jason Fitzgerald.
Overton secured the third starting spot in the feature by winning heat 2 over Sheppard and Brent Larson. Lanigan would begin the main event from the outside of row 2 by winning the fifth heat over Ross Bailes and Ryan King.
Finally, the third row starting positions were earned by Owens and McCreadie by virtue of their own heat race victories.
Rick Eckert and Frank Heckenast, Jr. won the B-main races used to set the remainder of the field for the main event.
At the start of the 50-lap feature, Moyer shot to the early lead with Overton, Owens, Richards, Davenport and Lanigan trailing close behind. With the frantic pace being set by the leaders in the early going, Moyer caught the tail of the field by lap 6, which allowed his pursuers to close to his rear spoiler.
However, a lap 6 caution for a multi-car spin in turn three gave the leaders a reprieve from the slower cars. On the ensuing restart, Owens moved around Overton take the runner-up spot. O’Neal spun on the backstretch to bring out another yellow flag on the eighth circuit.
On that return to green flag racing, Overton was able to get back around Owens to reclaim second while McCreadie moved into the top-5 when he move by Richards one lap later. Sheppard then went around Richards to grab sixth from last year’s World of Outlaws Late Models champion.
With cars hugging the bottom line, the race ran caution free for the next 29 laps. During that time, Moyer again caught the back of the pack, which included the recently spun O’Neal and defending Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series champion Scott Bloomquist.
Bloomquist had arrived late to the facility and missed hot laps and qualifying as a result. His use of a provisional starting position on a track that proved to be less than conducive for passing caused the No. 0 machine to run at the back of the field.
Moyer seemed content to protect the bottom of the speedway and ride on Bloomquist’s rear spoiler until lap 37 when the door appeared to open for the leader to move around the car he hoped to put a lap down. However, the cars made contact at the exit of turn two which sent Bloomquist spinning.
As the cars circulated the track under caution, Moyer came to a stop in turn four and ultimately had to be pushed off track with mechanical trouble. That misfortune handed the race lead to Overton.
From that point, Overton would lead the rest of the way to achieve the victory.
Feature Finish: 1. Brandon Overton, 2. Tim McCreadie, 3. Jimmy Owens, 4. Brandon Sheppard, 5. Jonahtan Davenport, 6. Josh Richards, 7. Darrell Lanigan, 8. Boom Briggs, 9. Devin Moran, 10. Jason Fitzgerald, 11. Donald McIntosh, 12. Earl Pearson Jr., 13. Rick Eckert, 14. Ryan King, 15. GR Smith, 16. Tyler Erb, 17. Steve Francis, 18. Brent Larson, 19. Frank Heckenast, Jr., 20. Don O’Neal, 21. Kenny Pettyjohn, 22. Dennis Erb, Jr., 23. Ross Bailes, 24. Casey Roberts, 25. Billy Moyer, Jr., 26. Scott Bloomquist
