Story by: Kenny Lang/Exclusive to RACE22.com

Radford, VA(April 19, 2009) — Philip Morris wants a third NASCAR Whelen All American Series championship in the worst way. Proof of that is in how the defending champion has started the 2009 racing season.

Four starts, four wins. Two of those at South Boston Speedway and two at his home track, Motor Mile Speedway.

He continued his Motor Mile mastery by leading every lap of the 150-lap feature at the .416 mile oval on Saturday April 18th.

Morris captured the Price’s Body Shop pole award with a 16.059 second lap. Frank Deiny, Jr(16.069), Chad Harris(16.072), Brandon Dean(16.083) and Tommy Lemons, Jr(16.103) were second through fifth in the qualifying order.

Morris and Deiny led the 29-car field to the green flag. Morris jumped to the lead with Harris getting by Deiny on the start to run second.

Through ten green flag laps the top ten consisted of Morris, Harris, Deiny, Lemons, Dean, Derrick Lancaster, Mike Looney, Shawn Mangum, Davin Scites and Dennis Holdren.

On lap 19, Lemons powered past Deiny for third position. Mike Looney was also making his presence felt by moving through the field.

The first caution of the race occurred on lap 31 when the number 50 car of Brad Foy spun coming out of turn four.

The field went back racing at lap 36 with Morris in control. Dean, Mangum and Scites were exciting the crowd with their battle for sixth, seventh and eighth. The racing was three wide at times.

A hard crash going into turn three on lap 47 involving the cars of Lynn Phoenix and Andrew Thomas brought out the yellow flag again. The cars got together when Scites broke something and stacked up the cars behind him. Scites did return to the track later several laps down.

The top ten when the field went back to green at lap 57 were: Morris, Harris, Lemons, Deiny, Looney, Dean, Mangum, Lancaster, Rusty Skews and Jamie Byrd.

Looney made his way by Deiny for fourth on lap 65. The racing was very close from 2nd through 8th during the longest green flag run of the day.
Looney continued his march toward the front, passing Lemons for third on lap 96.

The top ten at lap 100 were: Morris, Harris, Looney, Lemons, Deiny, Mangum, Skewes, Dean, Lancaster and Zeke Shell.

Harris and Looney definitely put on a show for the large crowd in attendance running side-by-side for many laps. The two veteran hot shoes made contact in turn four on lap 117 and Harris made one of the best saves this writer has ever seen and hung on to second place.

Jamie Byrd saw his good run come to an end on lap 121 as his car lost the engine. Heavy smoke out of the exhaust sent him to the pits for the night but no fluid made it to the track and the race stayed green.

The race continued green until lap 146 when Looney and Harris were at it again. Looney lost control of his car on the back stretch but kept it off of the wall. He did a great job not wrecking the car but had a right front flat as a result.

The yellow set up a green, white, checkered finish. All indications were Morris would pull away, but Harris had other ideas.

Harris got a great restart and muscled his way under Morris in turns one and two. The Stuarts Draft, VA driver pulled even with Morris down the back stretch and the two experienced drivers both buried their cars deep into turn three. They slid up the track and Deiny was there to peek inside of both of them. Morris regained control and took the checkered flag while Deiny passed Harris for second. Lemons and Mangum rounded out the top five.

Skewes, Dean, Shell, Lancaster and Kenny Bradley were sixth through tenth in the unofficial run down at press time.

Pit notes: Morris raced with a Ford engine after Motor Mile officials added 100lbs to any car that ran a Dodge built engine.