Story by: Corey Latham ~ [email protected]

Dillon, SC(July 8, 2011) — The Southeast Limited Late Model Tour rolled off for their second start of their Sophomore season this past Saturday night at Dillon Motor Speedway and was met once again by a hefty field and a first time winner.

The gritty SC track is one of the toughest around, and the Southeast tour has been known to be one of the roughest around, but Saturday night could go down as the cleanest race in the history of the series as young Logan Bunning picked up his first career win.

With the new “Challenger Series” for the tour which puts drivers with lesser experience in their own race, we had 36 Limiteds on hand, 25 for the main event. Rusty Daniels and Bunning would lead the field off in one of the tightest qualifying sessions ever seen on the tour or at Dillon at all, the top 20 were seperated by less than three tenths, the top ten under a tenth.

As the race rolled off it looked as if Daniels was going to run off and hide as he put nearly half a straightaway between he and Bunning. This was halted briefly in the opening laps as we had our first and really only incident of the night, a big wreck off turn four as fourth place Michael Elliott gets turned and wads up with TJ Barron, Gary Ledbetter, Jason Calhoun, Clay Jones, Darrell Gilchrist and John Waley. All would continue on except for Jones and Barron, their night was over early.

When we get back to racing Daniels checks out again but Bunning will run him down and make the pass for the lead bringing a hard-charging Austin Leitner with him on lap 37. The pair would walk away for a bit while Daniels began to fade, finally parking for the night on lap 52. Chris Chapman and Tyler Church are now third and fourth and put on a great battle for much of the night.

The race would roll on as a single-file affair for the most part with some tense battles back in the pack, most noticeably between Jake Morris and Ben Staton for the fifth spot. Morris, a Legend car standout had made the jump to full-size race cars at the end of last season and seemed to be getting the hang of it rather well as he ran inside of the more veteran driver Staton for almost the entire night.

Sprint car driver Trey Marcham was another driver with excitement around him as he made his way to the front looking like he had done this for years. In reality it was only Marcham’s fifth start on pavement…..ever. The Oklahoma native qualified tenth and found himself creeping into the top five the last 25 laps. He makes his way by Church and gives everything he has the last ten laps to get by Chapman for third but comes up just short, a great run none the less.

Up front It’s Bunning and Leitner, but could Leitner get to him to challenge? He tried a few times after some quick cautions but in the end Bunning was just to tough. He would pick up the win over Leitner who would later get DQ’d for multi piston brakes, making the new top five Chapman, Marcham, Church and Jake Morris.

It was great night of racing at Dillon Motor Speedway as owner/operator Ron Barfield and his staff are some of the best in the business and have a top-notch facility. The Southeast tour was fantastic, and while the races in the past have been a little bit of carnage filled, it was nice to see the young drivers show more give and take than normal. To Logan Bunning he didn’t care as he had no one in front of him, it was all take for his first win.

John Newsome GM Superstore 100
1. #46 Logan Bunning
2. #5 Austin Leinter
3. #28 Chris Chapman
4. #23 Trey Marcham
5. #07 Tyler Church
6. #99 Jake Morris
7. #70 Gary Ledbetter
8. #21 Tim Allensworth
9. #50 Ben Stanton
10. #32 Jerry Miracle
11. #05 Trevor Noles
12. #2 Louis White
13. #66 Travis Byrd
14. #33 JJ June
15. #11 John Thorton
16. #04 Travis Motley
17. #3 John Whaley
18. #53 Darrell Gilchrist
19. #76 Michael Elliott
20. #17 Archie Adams Jr.
21. #08 Rusty Daniels
22. #12 Jason Calhoun
23. #6 Jerry Burns
24. #15 Clay Jones
25. #44 TJ Barron