Jason Manley was the Limited Late Model winner at Smoky Mountain
Along with the Southern Nationals Super Late Model race on Friday night, Smoky Mountain Speedway also played host to competitors in the Limited Late Model and Street Stock divisions. Jason Manley and Chris Rickett would each end their nights in victory lane in those respective classes.
Brad Hall proved to be the fastest in Limited Late Model qualifying as he posted a lap of 16.188 seconds around the 4/10 mile clay oval. He was followed by Jason Trammell, Chase King, Manley, Dan Tipton and Hunter Best.
There were no heat races for this class as the field was set entirely through time-trials.
Perhaps the most pivotal moment of the feature occurred before the cars ever even took the green flag. As the 13 car field rolled out of turn four and headed for the starting line, the outside front row machine of Trammell never came up to speed. After he pulled into the pit area, Manley was moved up to the front row from his assigned fourth position as a result of the vacancy.
When the 25-lap feature finally did get underway, Manley bolted to the front of the pack with Hall, King, Best and Tipton in tow. However, King’s time as a contender for the race win came to an abrupt end on lap 5 when his car began to billow heavy smoke and lose fluid.
When the action resumed, Tipton moved around Best to claim third while Manley drove away from Hall up front.
After a lap 7 yellow flag for Best getting into the turn three wall, the top-4 of Manley, Hall, Tipton and Giffin separated themselves from the rest of the field and drove caution free to the end of the race in that order.
Manley received $1200 for his efforts.
Feature Finish: 1. Jason Manley, 2. Brad Hall, 3. Dan Tipton, 4. Bobby Giffin, 5. Brad Coffey
In other action, Chris Rickett drove to the win in the Street Stock class over Brad Davis and Adam Engel.
Chris Rickett
