BLOOMINGDALE, TN :: As the 2013 season dawned at Kingsport Speedway, a new era began as a new younger group of drivers took over the “Concrete Jungle”.
With Nate Monteith, the two time and defending champion not planning to race this season the road to victory lane was wide open. Enter the “young guns”. Hayden Woods and Ryan Stiltner were the fastest cars in practice on Saturday afternoon and looked to be the fastest cars of the day. In qualifying, Paul Nogradi upstaged the other two young guns and posted the fastest lap by a Late Model Stock Car in the history of Kingsport Speedway with a 15.060.
After an invert of the top four two of last seasons biggest winners were on the front row as Daniel Pope II and Zeke Shell led the field to the green flag. The first 23-laps of the race was rough with many single car incidents and debris cautions plauging the race. However as many of the notables like Pope getting taken out and eventually on the final restart of the day Shell pulled down pit road with mechanical trouble, the race went off caution free to the finish.
The final 37-laps of the race showed just what racing on the concrete paperclip 3/8 mile track was all about. Woods wrestled the lead away from Blake Jones who had fought tooth and nail to get to the front early on and inherited the lead from Shell’s misfortune coming to the final restart. From there Woods looked untouchable up front but Chad Finchum, who had started 10th was coming on strong.
Finchum caught Woods with five to go and drove around him cleanly and despite efforts from Woods held off the other young gun for his first NASCAR Whelen All-American Series Late Model Stock Car victory. Woods followed him to the line followed by Jones, Lee Tissot and Anthony Anders.
RACE22.com will have much more on this race later this week including video interviews, a full photo gallery, driver by driver insight and more.
Results
1. Chad Finchum
2. Hayden Woods
3. Blake Jones
4. Lee Tissot
5. Anthony Anders
6. Adam Long
7. Daniel Pope
8. Kres VanDyke
9. Austin Peters
10. Tyler Goodwin
11. Royce Peters
12. Ryan Stiltner
13. Rick Pannell
14. Dean Barrett
15. Erika Schmidt
16. Taylor Coffman
17. Zeke Shell
18. Paul Nogradi
19. Bruce Blessing
20. Joey Trent