Ryan King gets a hug from his No. 1 fan, Brittany Moore, in Victory Lane.
The NeSmith Crate Late Models weren’t about to take a back seat to the USCS Sprint Cars on Friday night at the 411 Motor Speedway as a very strong field of some of the area’s best drivers took to the Seymour, Tenn. track. After speedway owners Mitch and Tanya McCarter put up $1,000-to-win, a host of drivers with recent Late Model wins on the track showed up to take a shot at the top prize.
In the end, it was former NeSmith Late Model track champion Ryan King who would emerge with the victory.
Jerry Coffman set fast time among the 18 cars on hand when he posted a lap of 14.908 seconds around the 3/8 mile clay oval. The entire starting lineup was set by time-trials which placed King, Adam Beeler, Cory Hedgecock and Jimmy Elliott as the top-5 starters in the main event.
King bolted to the early lead from his outside front row starting spot at the beginning of what was intended to be a 30-lap feature with Coffman, Beeler, Hedgecock and Elliott in tow. Meanwhile, Jason Welshan, Rusty Ballenger and Blake Shapiro engaged in a hard fought battle during the race’s early stages for positions just outside the top-5.
A lap 7 caution for a minor spin bunched the pack and briefly gave the leaders a reprieve from slower traffic. Once the racing action resumed, King went back to the lead but the battle continued to be waged behind him.
Beeler moved to second on the restart from that one and only caution while Welshan began to rumble from further back. Hedgecock, Elliott and Welshan would stage a tremendous struggle for position just behind the leaders as the race wound through its second half.
Unfortunately, the scheduled distance had to be reduced from 30 laps to 20 due to the amount of time involved in clearing a huge crash from the preceding sprint car race. The track was being pressed for time due to a pending curfew.
In the final laps, both Beeler and Coffman appeared to be closing the distance between themselves and the leader, but there wasn’t enough time.
At the finish, it was Ryan King winning over Adam Beeler, Jerry Coffman, Jason Welshan and Jimmy Elliott.
