Casey Roberts won in his first ever trip to Boyd’s Speedway
The Southern Nationals made its way to the Boyd’s Speedway in Ringgold, GA to begin the second half of the two week mini-series with a $3500-to-win event on Tuesday night. Casey Roberts of Toccoa, GA emerged from that contest with the victory after a dominating performance that saw him lead all 35 laps on his way to victory.
Billy Ogle, Jr. now holds the lead in the series standings as a tight battle for that crown looks to go right to the wire between him, Roberts, Donald McIntosh, Austin Smith and Vic Hill over the next three races.
The drama began early in the night as cars roared around a track that had been made lightning fast by heavy rains that fell just hours before the scheduled start time. Randy Weaver caused a stir by setting fast time in Group A qualifying with a lap of 12.986 seconds around the third-mile oval. That lap broke the previous track record and had the big crowd abuzz.
However, Weaver’s time in the record books would be short lived as NASCAR star Austin Dillon led Group B qualifying and bettered Weaver’s time with a 12.890 second lap of his own.
Also locked into the dash race that would set the feature starting lineup for the first two rows were Roberts and Riley Hickman.
Hickman earned the pole position for the feature by winning the dash over Roberts, Weaver and Dillon.
Australian Craig Vosbergen, Ronnie Johnson, Austin Smith and Mark Dotson won the four B-main races that would set the remainder of the field for the main event.
Roberts took the early lead at the start of the 35-lap feature with Dillon, Hickman and Weaver following closely behind. With the track in ‘hammer down’ mode due to the previously mentioned rain, most drivers initially stayed in the high groove as the roared around the third-mile facility.
Johnson became the first to try his luck on the bottom side of the speedway and began to make up ground as he worked his way to sixth in the early going. However, the Hall of Fame member’s progression would come to a halt on lap 10 when he blew a tire and made contact with the outside wall as a result.
On lap 8, Weaver began to march forward as he regained the 4th position he had earlier lost to Smith. Soon afterwards, the defending champion of this race offered a challenge to the third running Hickman by ducking to the low side on successive ends of the race track.
All the while, Roberts continued to hold the lead with Dillon stalking just behind.
Ogle entered the evening tied with McIntosh at the top of the series standings. But he began to distance himself from his rival by employing a lower line than most others and picking off cars one by one.
Just after a lap 23 restart, Weaver moved around Hickman to claim third and immediately went after the second running Dillon. Ogle moved to fourth when he was able to get by Smith and Hickman on successive laps.
In the closing stages, the top-3 cars ran within close quarters of each other as they battled among slower traffic. With just two laps remaining, Weaver seized the runner-up spot from Dillon but he was unable to catch Roberts as the cars made their way to the checkered flag.
Feature Finish: 1. Casey Roberts, 2. Randy Weaver, 3. Austin Dillon, 4. Billy Ogle, Jr., 5. Vic Hill, 6. Mark Dotson, 7. Riley Hickman, 8. Austin Smith, 9. Craig Vosbergen, 10. Jason Hiett, 11. David Payne, 12. Stacy Boles, 13. Donald McIntosh, 14. Jason Croft, 15. Forrest Trent, 16. Gary McPherson, 17. Dylan Ames, 18. Ty Dillon, 19. Jason Welshan, 20. Jamie Perry, 21. Pierce McCarter, 22. Ronnie Johnson, 23. Brandon Kinzer
Southern Nationals Series Standings: 1. Billy Ogle, Jr.(1,023), 2. Casey Roberts(1,022), 3. Donald McIntosh(1,005), 4. Austin Smith(996), 5. Vic Hill(992)
