Smoky Mountain Speedway played host to races in the Brucebilt Iron-Man Modified Series and the Sportsman class on Saturday night as part of their Harvest Festival event that also featured a Southern Nationals Bonus/Iron-Man Series Super Late Model feature. Shon Flanary and Jed Emert left the Maryville, Tenn. facility after having made additions to their win columns once all the dust had settled for the evening.
Shon Flanary extended his Iron-Man Series lead
Flanary proved to be the fastest in Modified time-trials as he posted a lap of 18.134 seconds around the 4/10 mile clay oval. Jimmy Payne, Blake Brown, Brad Hall, Joey Cotterman and Kenny Cordell would make up the first three rows on the feature starting grid as the field was set entirely by qualifying.
Payne took the early lead when the green flag waved over the 20-lap main event for this division. Flanary, Hall, Brown and Cotterman trailed the early front runner. Payne and Flanary broke away from their closest pursuers by lap 4 with Flanary applying pressure to Payne at virtually every turn.
Brown, who entered the weekend embroiled in a tight points battle with Flanary on the Iron-Man Series, moved around Hall to take third on lap 12 and immediately began to close in on the top-2.
Flanary would make what proved to be the race winning move on lap 15 when he passed Payne on the low side of the track to take the lead. Soon after, Brown moved in and attempted to get around Payne for the runner-up spot. In the meantime, Flanary pulled ahead of the pack.
At the finish it was Shon Flanary taking the $1,500 victory ahead of Jimmy Payne, Blake Brown, Brad Hall and Joey Cotterman. It was Flanary’s fourth consecutive win in the series.
Jed Emert won the Sportsman feature on Saturday
Emert set the pace in Sportsman qualifying as he ran off a lap in 17.332 seconds to best the times of Kyle Courtney, Andy Ogle, Jerry Moss, Matt Steward and Ray Walls.
The initial start of the 15-lap feature saw Moss slide into and on top of the turn one wall just after the cars took the green flag. His night was over at that point and the race was due a full restart minus the driver who had been slated to start fourth.
Emert took the lead as his car slid up in front of Courtney as the field roared through turns one and two on the second attempt at a start. Ogle, Steward and Walls followed the top-2 in the early going. The top-3 of Emert, Courtney and Ogle remained in tight formation as they broke away from the pack.
From that point, Emert maintained his lead with Courtney and Ogle fighting to stay with striking distance.
Jed Emert went on to collect $1,000 for his win over Kyle Courtney, Andy Ogle, Matt Steward and Ray Walls.
