Scott Bloomquist was the winner on Wednesday night at Volusia.
*Story composed from DirtonDirt.com video and various social media reports.
After an rainout on Tuesday night, the UMP DIRTcar Nationals returned to action on Wednesday night at Volusia Speedway Park in Barberville, Florida with a $10,000-to-win feature event for Super Late Models on the half-mile facility located near the Daytona Beach area. A total of 48 cars were presented for competition for the event.
Entrants were split into six qualifying groups with the driver setting fast time in each group being awarded the pole position for his heat race.
Jared Landers posted the fast time in Group 1 with a lap of 16.116 seconds while Don O’Neal was best in Group 2 at 16.271 seconds and Jonathan Davenport led the way in Group 3 with a time of 16.445 seconds.
Mason Zeigler was quickest in Group 4 by posting a lap of 16.422 seconds with Shane Clanton proving fastest in Group 5 and overall at 15.788 seconds and Billy Moyer leading the way in Group 6 with a time of 16.099 seconds.
There would be six heat races during the night’s activities with the top-3 from each preliminary advancing to the feature event.
Gregg Satterlee got the early jump in the first heat race but the pole sitting Landers assumed the lead on the second lap and drove on to the win over Satterlee and Charles LaPlant.
Morgan Bagley emerged from an early battle with pole sitter Don O’Neal to drive on to the win in heat race #2. Brandon Sheppard earned the third and final transfer spot as he held off a race-long challenge from Kenny Pettyjohn.
Jonathan Davenport dominated the third heat race. At the same time, 5th starting Darrell Lanigan passed Kent Robinson on the last lap to finish 2nd just ahead of K-Rob.
Scott Bloomquist took the early lead in heat race #4 while pole sitter Mason Zeigler fell back as a result of a fierce battle for the lead early on. Chub Frank came home 2nd with Kyle Bronson taking the final transfer position.
Monday night feature winner Shane Clanton kept his momentum going as he drove away to win heat #5 over Frank Heckenast, Jr. and Josh Richards.
Dale McDowell won an early side-by-side battle over Billy Moyer then had to hold off the Hall of Fame member to win the sixth and final heat race. Eric Wells closely trailed the top-2 to the checkered flag to transfer to the big show.
A redraw among the six heat race winners determined the first three rows of the starting grid for the main event. Bagley was awarded the pole for the feature with Bloomquist, McDowell, Landers, Clanton and Davenport completed the lineup.
Tyler Bruening won the first of three Last Chance Showdown race while Mason Zeigler won the second LCS and Dennis Erb, Jr. took the checkered in the final race of the three.
Bloomquist wasted no time in bolting to the early lead in the 40-lap feature while pulling McDowell, Landers, Bagley and Davenport in tow. And from that point, the Mooresburg, Tenn. driver looked as if he might pull away from the entire field.
The main event would eventually run caution free but there were still battles on the track, just never really for the lead.
As the feature neared the midway point, Bagley and Lanigan began to move forward when each of them passed by Landers for 3rd and 4th respectively. As the lead car built an advantage of nearly three seconds over the second running McDowell.
Clanton moved forward and swapped positions with Lanigan on a couple of occasions over the course of the closing laps but was never able to show the type of dominance he had on Monday night.
But over the final ten laps, traffic started to become even more of a factor and McDowell attempted to take advantage as Bloomquist fought to lap slower running cars. At one point McDowell seemingly had Bloomquist in his sights but the Team Zero machine was finally able to hook up on the bottom line and sort through traffic to rebuild his margin.
In the end, Bloomquist cruised to his first feature win of 2015.
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Feature Finish: 1. Scott Bloomquist, 2. Dale McDowell, 3. Morgan Bagley, 4. Darrell Lanigan, 5. Shane Clanton, 6. Jared Landers, 7. Josh Richards, 8. Jonathan Davenport, 9. Chub Frank, 10. Gregg Satterlee, 11. Dennis Erb, Jr., 12. Kent Robinson, 13. Billy Moyer, 14. Brandon Sheppard, 15. Eric Wells, 16. Kenny Pettyjohn, 17. Tim McCreadie, 18. Mason Zeigler, 19. Tyler Bruening, 20. Kyle Bronson, 21. Charles LaPlant, 22. Ricky Weiss, 23. Frank Heckennast, Jr., 24. Boom Briggs, 25. Terry English, 26. Casey Roberts, 27. Don O’Neal, 28. Rick Eckert
