Alex Fleming roared past Zachary Marks on lap 35 and held him off for the final 25 laps to score a very emotional victory at Wake County Speedway’s 53rd season opener on Friday night.
Fleming celebrated his win with a spectacular John Force style burnout down the frontsretch which left the engine overheating after the race. He said in victory lane that the win was emotional because of the loss of his grandmother and because he may not be able to race much longer.
“It’s amazing,” Fleming said. “I don’t know how much more we can race. This is a good win. My grandmother passed away about a month ago and we have a little girl on the way so it’s blessings and heartache at the same time. This makes it a little bit easier. I know she was riding with me tonight.”
The race was a back-and-forth duel between Fleming and Marks. Marks took the initial lead from pole sitter Adam Resnick on the start of the race. Marks held off a couple challenges from Fleming before Fleming was finally able to get by on lap 35. Fleming said the battle between he and Marks was amazing and he was excited to prevail because he was not even sure he had a winning racecar.
“It was an amazing race,” Fleming explained. “The car wasn’t the winning car tonight but I had a lot of people on my side and that was the difference between third place and first place tonight. I couldn’t give up and the car couldn’t give up. There was extra stuff pushing us. There were a lot of hands on the car during the race.”
Zachary Marks had a strong enough car to score the win but, after a long hiatus from racing, Marks was content with second.
“We were doing alright; think I just got the right rear a little soft,” Marks said. “I definitely had fun out there. It’s been four years since I raced in anything and seven years since I’ve been out here. We’re hoping we have something for them in the next couple weeks.”
Adam Resnick prevailed in a three way battle for the third position in the closing laps while Steve Smith finished fourth and Joe Heigl rounded out the top-five.
Billy Hall prevailed in a thrilling Legends feature over Kenneth Tripp, Brenton Irvin, Stephen Ford and Shane Irving.
“From the qualifying times, I think the top-four were all within two-tenths of a second and that’s how I knew it was going to be a pretty competitive race,” Hall said. “Most of the time, we don’t have good luck on our side but tonight we did and that’s mainly the reason that we won but we also had a good car. It was half car, half luck. It’s just so great to be able to come here after a winter off and be so competitive.”
Justin Fussell scored the win in the Min-Stock feature which looked a lot like the Daytona 500 at times with three-wide racing all throughout the event. Darrell Haynie won the U-CAR feature which was combined with the Mini-Stock feature. Blaise Brinkley won the Bandolero division race which was halted by a red flag after a scary crash involving Kaleb Bradley. Bradley was okay after the accident. Kris Sheer won the Bombers feature which featured a four car battle all the way to the checkered flag.
Wake County Speedway’s next race will be held on Friday night, April 17th with 60 laps for the Late Model Stock Cars along with the Southern Ground Pounders Vintage Racing Club and racing for the Charger, Mini-Stocks, U-CAR, Legends and Bandolero divisions.
