By: BRODY JONES
Morgan County News
Another slam-bang Saturday night under the bright halogen lights of Wartburg Speedway is in the books as it was a night with a strong mix of familiar faces and first time winners earning the fruits of victory for their labor.
In the Pony Stock class, a somewhat depleted car count didn’t stop Taylon Overton from getting the sweep of winning his heat race and dominating his feature race to please the crowd with some post-race dirt donuts in what appears to be a new popular victory tradition. Overton withstood a protest that was filed by another competitor for his dominating victory to be upheld. Bradly Frost had to settle for second as Nathan Davis, Kenny Lemons, and Amy Wade rounded out the field.
The Sportsman class had a stout field of competition with Jaylon Shannon and Brad Adkission leading the field to the green flag by virtue of their heat race wins. Come time for the feature, however, Shannon surged to the front and went flag to flag to return to his winning ways. Adkisson finished second with Ted Lowe, Jimmy York, and Calvin Brown rounding out the top five. Bo Willis, Matthew Lloyd, Derrick Meadors, and Nick Perry rounded out the field. Jeremy Shannon was unable to start the feature race.
The Wartburg Late Models were paced by a lightning-fast 12.727 lap from Dan Tipton. In the feature, Tipton had what was referred to in the racing world as a “bad fast” race car as he picked up a dominant wire-to-wire win. Eddie King Jr., testing out a new race car, came home second. Last week’s big winner Anthony White ended up third with his doppelganger from the previous week in Mike Weeks in fourth. Current points leader Tim Ladd rounded out the top five as Caleb Marcum, Chuck Freels, and Chris Marcum rounded out the field.
In the Super Street heat, Westley Lester took the win to lead the field to the green flag and seemed poised for another win when an unfortunate skirmish with the lapped car of Terry Duncan damaged Lester’s car and punctured a tire, forcing him to surrender the lead to Skyler Douglas at lap seven. Lester rebounded to get within the tire tracks of Douglas, but Douglas held off Lester to earn a hard-fought first career win. Lester had to settle for second with Pat Lackey, Dewayne Chandler, and Terry Duncan closing out the field. Mike Duncan was unable to start the feature due to mechanical gremlins.
The Thunder Division saw Dwayne Wilkerson win the heat race and appear to be well on his way to another feature win, but fate dealt him a cruel hand when Daniel Daugherty detonated his Chevy engine in a plume of smoke with two laps to go to set up the final restart. On the restart, Barry Wilson dug down deep and barreled past Wilkerson to break a lengthy victory dry spell in the Thunder division. Wilkerson had to settle for second. Stephen Potter and Dustin Bean were third and fourth. Even with the expired Chevy powerplant under the hood of his car, Daugherty found himself in the fifth position. JJ Copeland rounded out the field as Robert Russell broke the rear end in his race car, causing him to be unable to answer the bell for the feature race.
The final feature of the night had Ryan Maston lead the field to the green flag by virtue of his heat race win. But come time for the feature, Sharp withstood the relentless pursuit of Todd Duncan for the flag-to-flag feature win. Maston fought off Cody Rector for third as Chris Morrison brought up the tail of the field.
Next week, Wartburg Speedway will not be in action as the Morgan County Fair will be hosting their $2,500-to-win demolition derby and, out of respect to the fair, Wartburg Speedway elected to take next Saturday night off. But if the loyal congregation of fans at Wartburg Speedway are worried, worry not, for the local heroes of Morgan County’s high-banked 3/10 mile bull-ring will be back in action on August 26th to enter the home stretch of the season with a mere three races left to go in the season and several points battles far from decided.
