Riley Hickman’s #R1 was the winner on Friday night in Cleveland.
After being shut down and dragged through court proceedings for almost a year, the Cleveland Speedway triumphantly re-opened on Friday night in front of a huge crowd and with a packed pit area. When all was said and done, it would be one of the area’s most accomplished veteran Late Model drivers who would celebrate in the newly refurbished Victory Lane at the historic track.
Riley Hickman wasted little time in establishing himself as the man to beat in the Limited(Steelhead) Late Model class when he established the fast time in qualifying with a lap of 13.694 seconds around the third-mile facility. Joining the Chattanooga driver in being locked into the feature via time-trials were Andy Picklesimer, Ethan Hunter, Brett Wyatt, Tod Hernandez and Jamie Perry.
Rex Richey, Dillon Tidmore and Rick Hixson won their respective heat races to earn top-10 starting spots for the feature.
At the start of the 25-lap main event, Hickman bolted to the early lead from the pole position with Picklesimer, Wyatt, Hunter and Hernandez giving chase. The #R1 CVR Race Car built a big lead quickly while there was some intense battling going on just behind him for positions within the top-10 of the running order.
Perry began to march forward from his 6th starting spot to pick off drivers ahead of him one by one, gaining the most ground on restarts. Throughout most of the night, Wyatt, Hunter, Perry and Hernandez would do battle on the clay oval.
The action was slowed by caution flags on five occasions, mostly for minor spins. Even though these yellow flag periods provided the field with an opportunity to close in on Hickman, no one was ever able to pose a serious threat to his position atop the leader board.
The final 8 laps ran caution free and Hickman drove away for the win. The fight to finish behind him was settled as Picklesimer held off a hard charging Perry for the runner-up spot with Wyatt, Hernandez and Hunter coming home 4th, 5th and 6th respectively. Mike Tinker, Rick Hixson, Jason Manley and Derek Ellis rounded out the top-10.
Hickman picked up $1,500 for the win.
