Donald McIntosh dominated at Boyd’s
Following several weeks with no dirt racing action to speak of, Dirt Late Model fans were treated to three consecutive nights of live broadcasts of race events shown by DirtonDirt.com. The third and final of those races went down on Saturday night at Boyd’s Speedway in Ringgold, GA. At the end of the Boyd’s Dirt Showdown it was home state driver Donald McIntosh who left the Chattanooga area with a $5,000 payday.
The top-4 from each of two qualifying groups were locked into the main event.
Austin Neely led the way in Group A qualifying by posting a lap of 14.464 seconds around the third-mile layout. That time beat out the efforts of Austin Tyler Smith, Riley Hickman and Devin Moran.
Donald McIntosh was quickest in Group B time-trials with a time of 14.255 seconds to better Jason Hiett, Tanner English and Jordan Rodabaugh.
David Seibers won the first heat race of the night over Tod Hernandez, Hudson O’Neal and Mario Gresham while Richard Smith was victorious in the second preliminary ahead of Dale McDowell, Jadon Frame and Heath Hindman.
At the start of the 50-lap feature it was Neely who darted out to the early lead followed by McIntosh, Smith, Hiett and English. Neely began to creep away early on. However, McIntosh closed back in by lap 6.
On lap 7 the Neely car skated up the track which allowed McIntosh to grab the lead. Smith followed suit and moved by Neely to take the runner-up position.
McIntosh began to slip away from the pack while Neely continued to fall back as Hiett made his way up to third around the pole sitter. A lap 15 caution slowed the action and allowed the pack to erase the advantage held by the leader.
Neely went back to second on the restart while McIntosh immediately began to pull away from those who chased him. However, another yellow flag would slow the action on lap 21.
The restart provided the fast rising Michael Page to moved forward as he moved around Hiett. Contact between the two cars cut a tire on the Hiett machine to bring out another caution.
A lap 34 restart saw Dale McDowell and Jesse Lowe tangle resulting in damage to both machines. Later on, early front runner Neely experienced troubles as he slowed with a flat tire with seven laps remaining in the event.
But there proved to be no answer from the competition for McIntosh as the Georgia native cruised under the checkered flag for the win.
Feature Finish: 1, Donald McIntosh, 2. Austin Smith, 3. Michael Page, 4. Riley Hickman, 5. John Ownbey, 6. Zach Leonhardi, 7. Cory Hedgecock, 8. Mario Gresham, 9. Tod Hernandez, 10. Jesse Lowe, 11. Tanner English, 12. Devin Moran, 13. Austin Neely, 14. Jason Hiett, 15. Jordan Rodabaugh, 16. Shanon Buckingham, 17. Vic Hill, 18. Cody King, 19. David Seibers, 20. Richard Smith, 21. Dale McDowell, 22. Jadon Frame, 23. Hudson O’Neal, 24. Heath Hindman, 25. Blake Naylor
