Story by: Andy Marquis ~ [email protected]

South Boston, VA(March 10, 2012) — CE Falk scored the win in Saturday’s NASCAR Whelen All American Series 300 presented by Danville Toyota at the South Boston Speedway in Virginia.  Falk led the final 110 laps of the race en route to a convincing win over Nick Smith and Eddie Johnson.  With the win, Falk starts the Virginia Triple Crown with the upper hand heading to his home track in Hampton in July.

“Yeah you know this race has been a hurtful one for me,” Falk said in victory lane after his win.  “I’ve finished second a couple times, third and crashed last year.  To come in and win this race in the way we did in the second half, I’m really pumped that we made the right changes on the car and bringing new guys on this team.  It’s a great start to 2012.”

This was Falk’s first win at the South Boston 300 lapper.  With this win in the bag, Falk also looked ahead to the Hampton Heat 200 at Langley Speedway, a race he has won the last two times out.

“We have a great Langley car,” he continued.  “This car we raced today is a traveling car.  Our Langley car was stout last year and I’m really looking forward to it.  It’s a great thing these three racetracks have done to get together and help late model stock car drivers and promote the sport.”

“We got next time,” second place finisher Nick Smith said.  “We’ll definitely be there, we’ve just have to decide what to do for the next race.  It’s definitely a confidence builder but we’re just going to treat it like another race and hopefully we can get some practice time.  We only got 100 laps of practice before the race today and overall it was a very good day.  I’m excited for the guys working on the car and I’m really looking forward to the next race.”

“The biggest thing is, we finished the race,” third place finisher Eddie Johnson said.  “Car’s all in one piece.  We like to win, but we got third place.  There are people behind me who’d like to have been third.  My hats go off to everyone on the crew.  It’s just awful nice to come have a good race and not tear up a bunch of cars.  It was my kind of race; I could lay back there and take it easy.  When we went to go, we felt like it was time to go.  We felt like we could have got a caution but it didn’t happen.  That’s the way it goes.”

Matt Bowling finished fourth and Dennis Holdren finished fifth.  Michael Hardin, Peyton Sellers, Austin Thaxton, Jesse Little and Darrell Gilchrist rounded out the top ten.  Eddie Johnson had fallen as far back as 13th in the race before rebounding to his podium finish.

The biggest wreck in the event took place when Terry Carroll hit the wall, collecting Bruce Anderson.  Bruce Anderson’s father, Charles, said the wreck happened right in front of Bruce and there was nothing he could do.  A member of Carroll’s team said he was put in to the wall by Michael Hardin.  Hardin was not available for comment after the race.

Falk led 154 laps in the 300 lap race.  The race took almost one hour and 53 seconds to complete, being slowed by five cautions including the halfway caution.  The average speed of the race was 63.739 mph, with the best lap being recorded by Greg Edwards with a 15.883 second, 90.663 mph lap around the 4/10th mile oval.  Falk was the race leader at the halfway point, winning a $500 bonus on top of the $10,000 check he took home for winning the race.

Unofficial Results

1 #40 – CE Falk
2 #0 – Nick Smith
3 #57 – Eddie Johnson
4 #83 – Matt Bowling
5 #12 – Dennis Holdren
6 #77 – Michael Hardin
7 #99 – Peyton Sellers
8 #2 – Austin Thaxton
9 #97 – Jesse Little
10 #20 – Darrell Gilchrist
11 #31 – Ryan Robertson
12 #14 – Mike Darne
13 #74 – Ronald Hill
14 #80 – Kris Bowen
15 #5 – Frank Deiny
16 #90 – Terry Carroll
17 #9 – Bruce Anderson
18 #98 – J.D.Eversole
19 #34 – Greg Edwards
20 #17 – Dude Gibbs
21 #07 – Danny Willis, Jr.
22 #7 – Justin Snow