Anybody pulling into the Desoto Speedway in Bradenton, Florida did not expect to see the large field of trucks for Saturday nights racing action. Twenty-eight trucks were registered with Danny Anderson holding off the hard charges from several trucks for the evening.
Stuart Vandevender led the field to the green with JR Garcia III on the outside. It did not take long for the leaders to catch lapped traffic on the 3/8 mile oval.
As the top five weaved around lapped traffic, they broke away from the rest of the field.
The first caution flew on lap 17 on the restart Anderson slipped by Chad Chastain but another caution on lap 19 bunched the field back up.
This set up a restart with Stuart Vandevender and Anderson on the front row and the trucks of Chastain, Garcia, Blake Haddock and Becca Monopoli behind.
On the restart Chastain got by Anderson and set his sights on Stuart Vandevender.
Chastain got by Vandevender a few laps later. Stuart Vandevender started to drift back through the field.
On lap 28 Stuart Vandevender, JR Garcia III and the lapped truck of Marina Petty tried to go three wide in turn three. Haddock and Monopoli were right behind all running under a blanket. As the group entered turn four Vandevender came out on the short end and came to a stop. He would not recover from the incident and finished 23rd.
On the restart Anderson got the better of Chastain and took the lead for good. Chastain did not give up with out a fight as he was all over the tailgate of Anderson.
Danny Anderson from his second row starting position took the checkers. In victory lane he said, “I can’t say enough about this truck. This truck was really hooked up tonight. It would go any where it wanted to.”
Chad Chastain finished second. He was glad the race was not one more lap as his truck broke a front suspension part at the checkers.
Blake Haddock, JR Garcia III and Lakeland’s own Becca Monopoli rounded out the top five.
Tommy Kelly, Cody McDuffie, Corey Bigley, Jimmie Best and Rodney Haddock were the top ten.
In open wheel modified action saw D.J. Hoelzle grab the lead from L.J. Grimm and he took off. Hoelzle was in another zip code by the time the checkers flew.
Hoelzle was the winner. Cameron Ray, L.J. Grimm, Nick Hernandez and Cody Stickler completed the top five.
Other action saw Randy Johnson take the checkers in the mini stock feature but was later disqualified for unsportsmanlike conduct. Roger Wright would end up the winner.
James Nanney took the checkers in the street stock feature.
Lee Davis won the mod mini feature and Carl Thompson won the bomber feature.
Desoto Speedway will be back in action this Saturday night with Super Late Models, Pure Stocks, Sportsmen, Bombers and Mod Minis.
