Jason Welshan in Boyd’s Victory Lane.
If Jason Welshan is entered in a Crate Late Model race somewhere in the east Tennessee region, there’s a very good chance he will win it. And once again that was the case on Friday night at the Boyd’s Speedway just outside Chattanooga in Ringgold, Georgia. The Maryville, Tenn. driver turned in a dominating performance in the feature but then had to hold on at the end in a nail bitter of a finish.
With the Spring Nationals Super Late Models event also being held at Boyd’s on Friday, the Crate Late Models broke from their usual routine of drawing for position and heat racing to set the feature lineup. Instead, the cars were given two qualifying laps to determine their starting spots for the feature.
Welshan set fast time in qualifying with a lap of 14.282 seconds around the third-mile clay oval. That placed him ahead of Jerry Coffman, Bryan Pritchard, Jeff Smith and Rick Hixson on the starting grid.
Track co-owner David Duplissey took the win in the last chance qualifying race for those drivers who had not been previously locked into the field via time-trials.
At the start of the 30-lap main event, Welshan bolted from his inside front row starting spot to take the early lead with Coffman, Pritchard, Hixson and Smith in tow. However, a caution flag waved early on when Blake Shapiro appeared to get turned around by another car in turn two while running in mid-pack. That caused several other cars to pile in as they found the track blocked in front of them.
Welshan again jumped out to a comfortable lead on the restart as Pritchard and Hixson both moved around Coffman to take 2nd and 3rd respectively.
Lap 5 saw another big pileup occur in turn two, which again put the race under the yellow.
Once the cars were able to run several consecutive green flag laps, Welshan held an advantage of several car lengths over a fierce 2nd place battle between Pritchard and Hixson. Further back, Coffman, Smith, Kenny Kizzar and Craig Burrows fought for positions within the top-10.
A pivotal moment in the race occurred on lap 19 when multiple cars tangled in turn two just in front of the leaders. All of the front runners were able to narrowly avoid disaster, and the stage was set for a thrilling run to the checkered flag.
On that ensuing restart, Welshan got out to another seemingly comfortable lead while Hixson and Smith moved around Pritchard to assume 2nd and 3rd in the running order. Those two drivers would race side by side for the runner-up spot essentially for the rest of the way.
As the laps clicked off, Welshan found himself approaching a large pack of slower cars that were using up virtually all lanes of the track ahead. The No. 29 car began trying to maneuver through the tail of the field as the battling cars of Hixson and Smith closed in quickly.
When the white flag waved, the three leaders were tightly bunched among the slower cars. All the way around the track on the final lap, Welshan, Hixson and Smith worked to find the lane that would get them back to the finish line the fastest. Through turns three and four, the leaders were essentially three wide. Finally, as they moved onto the main straightaway, Welshan was able to inch ahead and claim the win just ahead of Hixson and Smith. Pritchard and Coffman rounded out the top-5.
In other action at the track that sits on the Tennessee-Georgia border, Booger Brooks took the A-Hobby feature win over B.J. Wilson and Justin Winters. Also, Koty Campbell beat out Bruce Kimber for the win in the Pony class.
There was no B-Hobby feature due to the track’s 11:00pm curfew.
