It was a cool night for the end of August, as the night began at Anderson Motor Speedway for Twin 40 lap contest for the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series Late Model Stocks.
To begin the evening, the Late Models took the track for qualifying, when the dust settled, Colby Howard grabbed the fast time of the evening with David Roberts along side to lead the field to the green in the first twin.
As the green flag waved, Howard took to a early lead with the grizzled veteran of Roberts in tow. Lap 15, disaster would strike for Roberts on his “tar heel” blue #18, a right front tire went down and caused him to make contact with the outside retaining wall, damaging multiple suspension parts. Which would allow Luke Sorrow to now challenge Howard for the lead.
Meanwhile, out on the race track, their was some mind games being played against Howard and Sorrow. It took three times to get the race back going, once it did, Colby Howard grabbed the lead once again and never looked back as veteran RA Brown made some gains on Howard at the end of the race. Howard pulled off the win with RA Brown and Trey Gibson rounding out the top three.
In a post-race interview with the young Colby Howard he was asked to sum up how his race went.
Howard said, “The car was really good at the beginning and it fell off just a little at the end just because I had three people in my ear telling me what to do.”
With an eight-car invert to set the lineup for the second Twin-40 lapper. This would put Archie Adams Jr. and Neil Meredith on the front row.
David Roberts pulled out a backup car between races and thrashed on it to get it ready for the second race. He and his crew worked tirelessly with assistance from RA Brown until time to go racing again.
Adams would get out front early with Luke Sorrow right in striking distance and produce a huge gap back to the rest of the field as they were juggling for position and racing room. Meanwhile, Roberts in his backup car was making headway through traffic after starting 12th and made it all the way up to 5th when a caution would come out just passed the halfway point.
When the field was bunched back up, Trey Gibson and David Roberts would both rise to the occasion. Gibson had great “forward bite” through the center of the corners, Gibson also used the bumper and would maneuver his way to the race lead. David Roberts was able to get through traffic but not as fast as Gibson.
At the end of the contest, Trey Gibson would be victorious with David Roberts coming home 2nd and Archie Adams Jr. flexing some muscle and come home 3rd.
Gibson said, “The car just had a ton of drive through the center of the track at around halfway, the last ten laps as our tires got more wore out, the car leveled off. I just can’t thank my guys enough for all their hard work this week.”
Trey Gibson was also 20th on our Race22 Top 22 Rankings list and this performance will certainly help him to make an effort to climb up the list.
Next race at Anderson Motor Speedway will be September 8th for the annual Rupert Porter Memorial Shrine Race, the biggest race of the year at AMS and the final race for the NWAAS Weekly Program. NASCAR Late Model Stocks will be headlining the night by running Twin 50s plus all other weekly divisions to close out the Anderson Motor Speedway Friday night campaign.
