Brandon Overton continued his winning ways on night 2 at Lernerville
The second of the three-race set being held this weekend at the Lernerville Speedway took place on Friday night. The World of Outlaws Morton Buildings Late Model Series-sanctioned Firecracker 100 will take place on Saturday at the Sarvar, PA track with the action on Thursday and Friday being used to set the heat race lineups for that $30,000-to-win event.
On Friday when the racing action ended, it was fifth starting Brandon Overton who claimed the victory. The Evans, GA driver took home $6,000 for his win in a race shown live by DirtVision.com.
A total of 53 cars were signed in for competition.
Michael Norris led the way in Group A qualifying as he turned a lap in 15.986 seconds around the 4/10 mile clay oval besting Spencer Hughes, Ryan Gustin, Tyler Bruening, and Mason Zeigler.
The quickest in Group B time-trials was Brandon Sheppard with a time of 16.605 seconds to top Cade Dillard, Boom Briggs, Darrell Lanigan, and Chris Madden.
Michael Norris won the first heat of the night ahead of Ricky Weiss and Chris Ferguson then Mark Whitener took the second preliminary over Spencer Hughes and Mason Zeigler.
Chub Frank was the victor in the third heat by beating out Ryan Gustin and Alex Ferree while Max Blair defeated Brandon Sheppard and Rick Eckert in the fourth heat race of the night.
Brandon Overton took the checkered flag in the fifth heat by outrunning Chris Madden and Cade Dillard just before Dennis Erb Jr. grabbed the final heat over Jared Miley and Boom Briggs.
Tyler Bruening and Dan Stone made the lineup for the main event out of the first Last Chance Showdown then Mike Benedum and Darrell Lanigan transferred to the feature from the second LCS of the night. Dale McDowell and Scott Bloomquist moved out of the third and final LCS to the big show.
The WoO Late Model redraw established the top-6 of the starting grid as Whitener, Frank, Norris, Erb, Overton, and Blair.
At the start of the 30-lap feature it was Whitener who took the lead with Norris, Frank, Overton and Blair trailing. Erb jumped forward on lap 3 as he passed by both Blair and Overton to take fourth. Further ahead, Whitener and Norris fought for the race lead on lap 7. At the same time, Overton began his charge as moved back around Erb for third.
On lap 8, the top-3 of Whitener, Norris and Overton were in tight formation. Two laps later, Overton challenged Norris for the runner-up position then took that spot one lap later.
All that remained for the driver who swept the Dirt Late Model Dream week earlier this month was to track down the leader and he quickly did so. Overton passed by Whitener to take the top spot on the leaderboard on lap 13. From that point in a feature that ran caution free it was a matter of whether or not anyone could track down the hottest driver in Dirt Late Model racing and that eventually proved not to be the case.
In the end, Overton would sail under the checkered flag to claim yet another win in an already astounding season.
Feature Finish: 1. Brandon Overton, 2. Michael Norris, 3. Mark Whitener, 4. Dennis Erb Jr., 5. Brandon Sheppard, 6. Max Blair, 7. Chub Frank, 8. Ricky Weiss, 9. Chris Madden, 10. Chris Ferguson, 11. Ryan Gustin, 12. Mason Zeigler, 13. Darrell Lanigan, 14. Jared Miley, 15. Rick Eckert, 16. Spencer Hughes, 17. Tyler Bruening, 18. Mike Benedum, 19. Alex Ferree, 20. Dale McDowell, 21. Cade Dillard, 22. Scott Bloomquist, 23. Dan Stone, 24. Brent Larson, 25. Boom Briggs, 26. Kyle Strickler
