Story by: Corey Latham ~ [email protected]

Winston-Salem, NC(June 22, 2011) — The Stadium Stocks were the feature race of the night this past Saturday at Bowman Gray Stadium but the Sportsman division were also in action with a pair of 20 lappers.

While 20 laps doesn’t seem like much, at Bowman Gray that is more than enough time for some drama and tempers flaring to boot. After it was all said and done a veteran picked up his first win of the season and a legends son picked up his first win in his career.

In the first race it was the usual blind draw for starting positions as the stadium never qualifies the cars on a regular weekly show. John Lain would lead the field to green with point leader Tommy Neal to his outside, Lain would quickly be disposed of and passed until he was deep in the field never to be a factor with Taylor Branch and Robbie Brewer giving chase to Neal in the early laps.

We make it to lap 11 when the cars of Kyle Southern, Kevin Neal and Mitch Gales get tangled up in turn two, the big lead that Tommy Neal had was now erased. The ensuing restart brought even more bad news to Neal as he had a tire going down and spun heading into turn one collecting Branch with him handing the lead to Brewer.

Brewer would put it in the wind from this point, using his usual style of dirt-tracking the car through the turns, if anyone has never seen Brewer get around the track it is definitely fun to watch. David Adams would try his best to hold off Zack Clifton for second but finally gives way with two laps to go as Brewer collects his first win of the season.

Brewer would draw the invert for race two pulling a 12 out of the bag inverting the top 12 for race one putting Michael Adams, son of long-time veteran David Adams on the pole with Kenny Bost, Bryant Robertson and Kyle Edwards following behind. It doesn’t even take us to turn one before the action starts with Bost and Robertson getting together with Robertson spinning to the infield with Michael Adams jumping to the lead.

Lap two didn’t get much better as John Lain, Zack Clifton, David Adams, Mitch Gales, Evan Duggins, Kevin Neal and Derek Stoltz all pile up in turn one with Neal going off on the hook. The caution may have been a blessing for Kenny Bost as Robertson was riding slow around the track, an indication that some kind of payback was being thought over from the lap one contact.

Lap five would see another giant pile-up as Mike Robertson, making a run out of retirement, has a right rear tire go down and tries to get low on the track but the rear of the field bottlenecks and comes to a halt. Tommy Neal would make it through unscathed, he was now in his backup car as his rear suspension was broken on his primary car from the first race and being the point leader, every point counts.

Up front it’s the younger Adams pacing the field, Bost is usually fighting for the lead but on this night he didn’t seem to have anything for the leader. We approach lap lap 13 and Mitch Gales jacks up John Lain all the way down the backstretch and finally spins him around into the infield. We find out later that this was payback from a earlier week and again earlier that night as Lain has not made many friends since running the Sportsman division for the first time this season. It would boil over excessively a few laps later.

After the restart Adams pulls away again but all eyes are stuck on the Lain machine as he rides slowly around the track. Gales comes up on him and goes to the outside to pass when Lain gases up and carries them both wide-open into the turn three guardrail turning right the whole time with Gales hitting extremely hard and jolting his car up into the air, both cars are completely destroyed. Cops would be on the scene quickly but no further anger was shown, a suspension looks to be in order for Lain in the coming weeks as this payback was borderline assault.

Adams hated to see all of this as he would pull away after each restart but the cautions would give the entire field another chance each time. Now he had to go and did just that, getting a great restart over Bost and Kyle Edwards and driving away to his first Bowman Gray victory. His father, with his car battered would pull up to congratulate his son in victory lane, a place the Adams family had been many times before.

It’s always crazy at the stadium but this night was a little over the top in each division, we even had a couple drivers take a ride downtown with Winston-Salem’s finest later in the night. For Robbie Brewer and Michael Adams it was a great night, as it was for Kyle Edwards too as he took over the point lead from Tommy Neal by seven points due to Neal’s bad luck in race one. With Bryant Robertson only two points back from Neal and Brewer three back from him, this weeks 60 lapper with the cone in use could be one of the biggest races of the season as far as the championship is concerned.

Race 1:
1. Robbie Brewer
2. Zack Clifton
3. David Adams
4. Barry Edwards
5. Mike Evans
6. Jeff Garrison
7. Luke Fleming
8. Gary Ledbetter
9. Bryant Robertson
10. Kyle Edwards
11. Kenny Bost
12. Michael Adams
13. John Lain
14. Mike Robertson
15. Mitch Gales
16. Kevin Neal
17. Taylor Branch
18. Todd Gray
19. Kyle Southern
20. Evan Duggins
21. Danny Cornwell
22. Tommy Neal
23. Derek Stoltz
24. Robert Lawson
25. TJ Moran

Race 2:
1. Michael Adams
2. Kenny Bost
3. Kyle Edwards
4. Gary Ledbetter
5. Luke Fleming
6. Jeff Garrison
7. Mike Evans
8. Robbie Brewer
9. Barry Edwards
10. Taylor Branch
11. Tommy Neal
12. Derek Stoltz
13. Bryant Robertson
14. Todd Gray
15. David Adams
16. Kyle Southern
17. Danny Cornwell
18. Evan Duggins
19. Mitch Gales
20. John Lain
21. Mike Robertson
22. Zack Clifton
23. Kevin Neal