Devin Moran took the lead with less than 10 laps remaining
After a Saturday night rain out pushed the action back to Sunday afternoon, the World of Outlaws Morton Buildings Late Model Series took to the track at Bristol Motor Speedway to complete their two-race weekend on the NASCAR track. At the end of the day, it was Devin Moran who claimed the victory in east Tennessee. The Dresden, OH driver earned a hefty $25,000 for his efforts in a race that was shown live by DirtVision.com.
A total of 29 cars were signed in for competition.
Kyle Bronson led the way in Group A qualifying with a lap of 16.048 seconds around the half-mile clay oval to outperform Devin Moran, Parker Martin, Josh Richards, and Ross Bailes.
Brandon Overton was quickest in Group B time-trials with a time of 15.966 seconds to beat out Jimmy Owens, Rick Eckert, Ricky Weiss, and Darrell Lanigan.
Ross Bailes took the first heat race of the afternoon by outrunning Parker Martin, Kyle Bronson, and Jared Landers while Devin Moran won the second preliminary over Chris Madden, Josh Richards, and Ryan Gustin.
Rick Eckert was the victor in the third heat ahead of Brandon Overton, Darrell Lanigan, and Shane Clanton just before Ricky Weiss defeated Frank Ingram, Jimmy Owens, and Tyler Bruening in the fourth and final heat.
Jonathan Davenport, Brandon Sheppard, Kyle Strickler, Ricky Thornton Jr., Dennis Erb Jr., and Ryan King transferred to the main event by way of the Last Chance Showdown.
The WoO Late Models redraw set the first four rows of the starting lineup as Weiss, Moran, Eckert, Bailes, Overton, Madden, Martin and Ingram for the feature.
Weiss went to the early lead at the start of the 40-lap feature with Moran, Madden, Bailes, and Overton trailing. Overton then went to work as he passed by Bailes to claim fourth on the third lap.
Weiss began to pull away from the field in the early going until a caution flag for the slowing machine of early season points leader Strickler. On the restart, Madden and Bailes roared by Moran to move up to second and third respectively.
A second yellow flag waved on lap 11 for the slowing car of Martin. On this restart, Moran jumped back into the second spot as Weiss again drove away from his pursuers.
Further back, Eckert, Davenport, Owens, Bronson, and Thornton fought hard for positions 6-10 at the halfway point of the feature.
Bailes took third away from Madden on lap 26 as those two drivers worked through slower traffic. But a change was pending at the front of the field came on lap 27 when Moran closed in on Weiss.
That change at the front did in fact occur on lap 31 when Moran took the lead with a move on the high side of the track just before a caution for debris was displayed on lap 32.
Moran was able to keep his challenges behind over the final laps as he sailed under the checkered flag to claim his sixth career WoO Late Models victory which moved him ahead of his father, Donnie Moran, on the all-time win list.
“Oh my goodness,” Moran declared in his victory lane interview. “This is unbelievable. I fell back there a little bit. I thought we were in trouble. The outside, I didn’t realize was so much better. I could see them lapped cars running the top so I knew if we got into lapped traffic I could get close enough to him that I could get around him and that’s exactly what happened. This is a dream come true. Look at this place, this Bristol and we just won.”
Feature Finish: 1. Devin Moran, 2. Ricky Weiss, 3. Ross Bailes, 4. Ricky Thornton Jr., 5. Brandon Overton, 6. Chris Madden, 7. Kyle Bronson, 8. Jonathan Davenport, 9. Tyler Bruening, 10. Rick Eckert, 11. Jimmy Owens, 12. Ryan Gustin, 13. Brandon Sheppard, 14. Kyle Strickler, 15. Shane Clanton, 16. Dennis Erb Jr., 17. Frank Ingram, 18. Darrell Lanigan, 19. Scott Bloomquist, 20. Ryan King, 21. Brent Larson, 22. Parker Martin, 23. Boom Briggs, 24. Josh Richards, 25. Blake Spencer, 26. Jared Landers, 27. Cade Dillard
