Ronnie Johnson picked up a total of $6,000 in earnings this weekend.
Ronnie Johnson collected a win in the NeSmith Dirt Late Model Series on Friday night at the Tri-County Race Track after Jason Welshan was disqualified because of a tire infraction. On Saturday night in the J.T. Kerr Memorial at the 411 Motor Speedway, there was no need for a disqualification as the legendary driver took the lead in the middle stages of the race and sailed away for the victory and a $4,000 payday.
The night began with Cleveland’s Jimmy Elliott setting fast time in qualifying among the 27 Crate Late Model cars on hand as he posted a lap of 14.553 seconds around the 3/8 mile oval. With the top-10 from qualifying being locked into the feature, Mack McCarter, Ronnie Johnson, Adam Beeler, Greg Martin, Tanner Works, Ryan King, Jacob Anderson, Jensen Ford and Todd Morrow joined Elliott in earning a starting spot though time-trials.
Jake Teague and Walker Arthur won the two B-mains used to set the remainder of the field for the main event.
Elliott shot to the early lead in what would prove to be a caution plagued 40-lap race. A wreck on the initial start of the feature would cause heavy damage to the car of series points contender Walker Arthur as his and several other cars tangled in turn four before a single lap had been completed.
Once the race finally did get underway, drivers stalking the front runner during those early laps would be McCarter, Johnson and Martin. Those four cars would break away from the pack immediately after each restart in the race’s first half.
In all, the race would be slowed seven times for incidents on the track, with most of those coming before the halfway point.
In between the caution periods, there was great racing throughout the field. Johnson continuously stalked Elliott, except for when he briefly surrendered the runner-up spot to McCarter after losing momentum while challenging Elliott for the lead. Also, the action was fast and furious in the back half of the top-10 as the likes of Anderson, King, Works, Morrow and Ford fought for each of those spots.
On lap 22, Johnson was finally able to take advantage of several consecutive green flag laps to make a move on Elliott. The ‘Chattanooga Flash’ rolled around the ‘Mohawk Warrior’ on the outside as the cars worked down the back stretch and through turns three and four to assume the lead. From that point, the National Dirt Late Model Hall of Fame member never looked back as he was able to pull away in the closing laps.
Perhaps the race’s most noteworthy caution came after a lap 27 restart when Martin and Works had their cars get locked together during a battle for the 4th position. That incident brought out a brief red flag as track workers had to get the two machines pulled apart.
There would be no more yellow flags after that point and Johnson would drive away from his pursuers to take the win.
At the finish, it was Ronnie Johnson, Jimmy Elliott, Mack McCarter, Tanner Works, Ryan King, Chris Noah, Ryan King, Rusty Ballenger, Jake Teague and Adam Beeler taking the top-10 spots.
