Brandon Clements was victorious in Sunday night’s Memorial Classic, besting the most competitive field in Carteret County Speedway history.
After struggling in qualifying, Clements raced his way to the front of the field, passing Chris Burns to take the lead on the 43rd lap of the 80 lap race. Clements checked out from the field and went on to score the win, his second consecutive win in the Late Model division.
“It’s easy when you’ve got a car like this to drive,” Clements said in victory lane. “I can’t thank Wendell Davis enough and everybody that puts effort into this thing. It’s a dream to drive. When the air pressures come up, everybody else seemed to fall off and we picked up. It did exactly what Wendell said it would do.”
TJ Barron raced his way to second and began to close in on Clements midway through the final green flag stint, which ran for 55 laps. However, Barron’s car began to fade in the closing laps which allowed Clements to extend his lead. Barron ended up finishing in the runner-up spot for the second time in 2018.
“It just went away,” Barron said. “The car, right there in the middle when I got around Chris and I was running Brandon down, it was real good and then I started losing drive off. [Clements] kept getting further and further into the sunset. We had a good car. Fell all the way back to ninth and came up to second at this place is pretty good.”
Jason York was leading early in the race but ended up surrending the lead to Burns on lap 35. When trying to execute a crossover move on Burns, York spun off the front bumper of Mini Tyrrell’s car and was relegated to the rear of the field. York methodically raced his way back up to a third place finish.
“Chris got under me and I let him go and I was going to do an old Earnhardt move and get back under him and Mini, he kind of went in there, but it’s all good,” York explained. “Had a good run. I needed a caution. This car was awesome. It wouldn’t firee] off too great on the restarts. Took about two or three laps to fire off but when it fired off, it was awesome.”
Chris Burns wound up finishing in fourth while Sarah Cornett-Ching, in her first Late Model race and her first start at Carteret County Speedway, finished fifth.
14 cars started the race, including York, a former UARA-STARS champion and former winner of the ValleyStar Credit Union 300 at Martinsville Speedway. Ryan Glenski, a veteran racer who won the prestigious Myrtle Beach Limited Late Model race in November 2017, also competed in the race, finishing 13th. Former Carteret County Speedway winner Eric Winslow made his first start of the 2018 season after winning a race at Wake County Speedway on Friday night.
Race Results
- Brandon Clements
- J. Barron
- Jason York
- Chris Burns
- Sarah Cornett-Ching
- Gerald Benton
- Eric Winslow
- Adam Resnick
- Joshua Yeoman
- Clay Jones
- Don Carlton
- Mini Tyrrell
- Ryan Glenski
- Dustin Yeoman
