Cade Dillard appeared to be on his way to a WoO Late Models win
Cade Dillard looked as if he had the opening night 50-lap feature race in the Sunshine Nationals at Florida’s Volusia Speedway Park in hand as the laps clicked away. But a lap 45 caution that set up an ill-fated restart would prove otherwise. And just that quickly, it all went away for the Robilene, LA native who finished third in last year’s World of Outlaws Morton Buildings Late Model Series standings.
For a brief moment it looked as if Dillard might end the first night of the season in victory lane and with the early points lead, but instead, the 29-year-old driver found himself with a bitter pill to swallow.
Dillard was leading by a relatively comfortable margin and appeared to be on cruise control until the car of Tony Jackson, Jr. slowed to bring out a caution with five laps remaining. On the ensuing restart, second running Darrell Lanigan, who was making a return to Rocket Chassis for this season, made a bold move in an attempt to take the lead.
As the cars exited turn two just after the green flag had waved, the No. 29 appeared to be ahead as it began drifting up the racing surface. Dillard’s car had regained momentum and was flying back in the outside lane of the track. Contact between the two sent Lanigan spinning, and at first, did not appear to cause much damage to Dillard’s MB Customs ride.
The left front of Dillard’s car(Photo: @WoOLateModels)
But when Dillard rolled back onto the front stretch and pulled over to receive attention from officials, the result of the mishap was obvious. The left front fender was peeled away from the bright red machine.
Dillard was placed back in the lead but two laps after the racing action resumed, Kyle Bronson sped by the disabled car of the former leader and drove on to claim the $10,000 win.
A dejected Dillard ultimately came home second after triumph seemed all but certain.
“Man, we had a really good car,” Dillard told DirtVision.com following the race. “When we lost the left front this whole car just got terrible. These things are so aero-dependent. I don’t know, man, it’s disappointing. We had a really good car and we’ve been working really hard. I’m not going to bad mouth anybody. I know bad things happen. Just unfortunate.”
The racing action will resume on both Friday and Saturday nights at the Barberville, FL track. Those races will also be aired live by DirtVision.com.
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