Trent Ivey scored the biggest win of his career at Cherokee
The Southern Nationals moved to Cherokee Speedway on Sunday night to contest the second of what is scheduled to be an 11-race mini series. At the end of the night it was local hero Trent Ivey who stood in victory lane collecting the $10,000 payout and celebrating with his crew.
It ws Ivey’s first Southern Nationals feature victory and the richest payday of his career.
Trent Ivey proved to be fastest in Group A qualifying with a lap of 15.261 seconds around the 4/10 mile clay oval bettering the times of Michael Brown, Aaron Ridley and Chris Ferguson.
Brandon Overton was best in Group B qualifying and overall after posting a lap of 15.200 seconds to beat out Ross Bailes, Donald McIntosh and Kyle Strickler.
Trent Ivey would start the feature from the pole by virtue of his victory in the night’s first heat ahead of Tanner English, Aaron Ridley and Jake Knowles while Michael Brown earned the win in the second preliminary over Chris Ferguson, Michael Page and Jeff Smith.
Brandon Overton took the third heat and earned the honor of staring the main event from the outside of the front row after he topped Donald McIntosh, Dennis Franklin and Anthony Sanders just before Kyle Strickler won the fourth and final heat by beating out Ross Bailes, Casey Roberts and Derrick Ramey.
Benji Hicks won the lone B-main of the night.
At the start of the 53-lap feature Ivey shot to the lead with Overton, Brown, English and Strickler in his tire tracks. Strickler moved quickly and wrested fourth from English on the second circuit but English fought back two laps later at the same time Ferguson and McIntosh fought over sixth.
However, Strickler would bring out the first of what would prove to be many cautions on lap 6 when he suffered a flat tire. On the restart McIntosh looked as he might pull himself into contention as he moved into fourth just behind the battle between Brown and Overton for the runner-up spot.
Brown briefly took the lead from Ivey on lap 7 but the move would be negated by a caution flag.
McIntosh looked to continue his move forward when he passed Overton for third on lap 9 while Brown again closed in on Ivey as the two front runners worked into slower traffic on lap 15.
But a yellow flag on lap 19 again put a damper on the action. Two significant events occurred as the cars circulated under caution. Brown surrendered the second position when he pulled into the pit area and out of the race with mechanical issues. McIntosh also made his way to the hot pit for a tire change. All of that pulled Overton back into second behind Ivey.
As the competitors worked toward and beyond the halfway point Overton, who won the Spring Nationals opener on Saturday at Wythe Raceway, closed in and began to apply pressure on Ivey.
But over the final laps Ivey was able to hold off any and all challenges following restarts to eventually seize the victory.
Feature Finish: 1. Trent Ivey, 2. Brandon Overton, 3. Michael Page, 4. Ross Bailes, 5. Jake Knowles, 6. Kyle Strickler, 7. Benji Hicks, 8. Matthew Nance, 9. Donald McIntosh, 10. Cla Knight, 11. Tanner English, 12. Aaron Ridley, 13. Derrick Ramey, 14. Anthony Sanders, 15. Jeff Smith, 16. Christian Hanger, 17. Adam Yarbrough, 18. Dennis Franklin, 19. Doug Sanders, 20. Michael Brown, 21. Chris Ferguson, 22. Larry Grube, 23. Casey Roberts
