CALLAWAY, VA :: Brian Pembleton scored the win at Franklin County Speedway on Saturday night, snapping a two year winless streak. Prior to Saturday’s race, Pembleton’s most recent trip to Victory Lane had been in a Limited Late Model race at South Boston Speedway on May 28, 2011. Pembleton had a fast car on this day but it was no easy task for the cagy veteran,
“I’m loving this track right now,” Pembleton said. “We worked really hard today in practice. We got the car really good. Ryan Glenski is a good racer and I can’t say enough about him. I wasn’t trying to wreck him; I was trying to rattle him. I led most of the race. I wasn’t going to give it up at the end. It was a good hard race.”
Pembleton had to hold off a challenge from Ryan Glenski to win the race. Glenski appeared to have the fastest car for much of the day and swapped the lead with Pembleton several times late in the 35 lap race.
“It was a good clean race,” Glenski said. “I had a lot of fun racing with Pembleton. This was our first time coming out to Franklin County Speedway. We had a lot of fun racing at this place and there were a lot of great fans out here.”
Glenski set the fastest lap in qualifying with a 14.3 second lap. The top five cars were inverted putting Daryn Cockram on the pole. However, Cockram’s time out front was short lived. Pembleton blew by Cockram on the second lap of the race and pulled away.
Glenski moved in to the second position and started reeling Pembleton in finally got a shot when a couple of cautions came out. One of the cautions was for a spectacular crash involving Danny Wickham and Brad Foy. The body of Foy’s car was completely torn off in the accident but the roll cage remained intact. Both drivers were okay.
When the racing resumed, Pembleton and Glenski staged a classic duel for the top spot. The two ran side-by-side, dead even for a handful of laps, until Glenski prevailed with the top spot. Then, with four laps to go, Pembleton used the “bump and run” on Glenski to take the top spot and secure the victory. Glenski went on to finish second.
Roger Parrish, Jr. finished in third with Tommy Peregoy and Rusty Gaspard finishing fourth and fifth. Rounding out the top 10 were Johnny Cash, Bobby Gillespie, Wesley Thomason, Kyle Dudley and Brad Foy. Danny Wickham finished in 11th while Daryn Cockram was forced to drop out of the race early finished in 12th and Eddie Rocke finished in 13th starting and parking Kyle Dudley’s second car.
The race was originally scheduled to feature twin 35 lap Late Model features but heavy rains moved in around 9pm forcing the track to cancel the rest of the racing program.
