Michale Page won a thrilling Crate Late Model feature at Senoia
Along with the season opening Spring Nationals race won by Scott Bloomquist, the Senoia Raceway also hosted racing among its regular classes on Friday night. The Crate Late Model division staged a thrilling contest that saw Michael Page come away with the win after a fierce battle throughout on the multi-groove gumbo clay surface of the Senoia, Georgia facility.
Clint Smith was the fastest in qualifying for the Crate Late Model division when he toured the 3/8 mile clay oval in 15.422 seconds to beat out Page, Austin Horton, Jordy Nipper, Ashton Winger, and Ronnie Johnson.
However, the speedway has a rule that any driver who competes in two the track’s classes on the same night, that driver cannot start higher than sixth on the lower class’s starting grid. Because Smith, Horton and Johnson each planned to race in the Limited Late Model division(considered higher than the crate) they were relegated to the sixth, seventh and eighth starting spots respectively. That put Page and Nipper on the front row for the main event.
The Spring Nationals race did not count among the track’s regular classes, thus Page was able to keep his front row starting position in this race.
At the start of the 20-lap feature it was Page who immediately went to the front with Nipper, Horton, Winger and Smith tailing. Horton wasted little time in making up the ground he lost on the starting grid as he swept into second on lap 2 with Smith moving quickly to third and Johnson pulling up to the fourth spot on the fourth circuit.
The top-5 running cars of Page, Horton, Smith, Johnson and Winger then began to break away from the rest of the pack by the completion of the fifth lap. On lap 8, Horton moved in and began to challenge Page for the race lead as he took a low line around the track with Page sticking to the top of the speedway. After multiple attempts, Horton’s efforts paid off on lap 11 when his No. 16 machine moved to the front of the field. Just one lap later, Smith joined the fray as he also went by Page.
A lap 14 caution for a spin by Jody Knowles reordered the field and set the stage for a six lap dash to the finish. On the ensuing restart, Page moved back to second in turns one and two then closed on Horton as the cars roared down the backstretch. Entering turn three Page sailed by Horton with a high-speed slide job maneuver. However, his momentum carried him up the track which allowed Horton to crossover and retake the lead on the front stretch.
As the cars went through turns one and two gain, Page went back around Horton and seized the lead of the race once more. At the same time, the veteran drivers Smith and Johnson waged their own war for the third position.
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But in the end, it would be Michael Page who would win the race back to the checkered flag beating out Austin Horton, Clint Smith, Ronnie Johnson, Ashton Winger, Woodrow Mullis, Jordy Nipper and Lamar Haygood The victory was worth $1,000 for Page.
