BLOOMINGDALE, TN :: To say that defending Kingsport Speedway and Tennessee State NASCAR Whelen All-American Series champion Chad Finchum of Knoxville is on a roll would be an understatement. He entered the night of racing at “The Concrete Jungle” having won the last four Wallace Kia Late Model Stock events.

The 19-year-old Finchum set fast-time (15.085 seconds) in qualifying to earn his eighth pole award in 2014. But following roll of the dice the top-five from time trials were inverted for start of the 60-lap feature race. Teenage rookies Justin Fontaine and Zack Walton led the 18-car field to the green flag from the front row, and after racing side-by-side the opening two circuits, Walton moved ahead into the lead.

Working the third lap between turns one and two, behind Walton things became quite interesting when Fontaine got into the left-rear quarter panel of 2011-12 Kingsport Speedway champion Nate Monteith and sent Monteith spinning. Fontaine was also collected along with Lee Tissot, while others sustained sheet-metal damage while trying to avoid the wreck. All continued except for Tissot, whose race was over with his damaged car parked in the pits.

Off the double-file restart, Finchum powered ahead of Walton and Keith Stiltner, followed by Austin Peters and Joey Trent. Another caution waved on lap 15, when Allen Hawkins had a right-rear tire go down (flat) and he spun exiting turn two on the backstretch.

Back under green and once again Finchum pulled out ahead of Walton and Stiltner. Several competitors’ had their qualifying times disallowed due to post-run rules infractions, among them current point leader Kres VanDyke, Ronnie McCarty and Zeke Shell. After being forced to start the race from rear of the field, the trio began making a hard charge forward.

With Finchum in command out front leading Walton, Stiltner and Peters by right at a half-straightaway, VanDyke moved into fifth place on lap 23 and behind him were Trent, McCarty, Shell, Tyler Goodwin and Monteith in the running order.

As the leaders worked lapped traffic, just completing lap 42 at the start-finish line, disaster for second-running Walton when he tangled with the lapped car of Sam Steffey. Both cars slammed hard into the outside concrete wall and locked together sliding amidst a shower of sparks along the wall until coming to a grinding stop past the pit gate entrance in the first turn to bring out the caution, and then red flag to quickly allow emergency and track officials to get to the scene. Both drivers climbed uninjured from their torn-up race cars.

Back under green, Finchum pulled ahead of Stiltner and VanDyke. But VanDyke was not content to ride in third and he got around Stiltner for second on lap 44 racing off the fourth turn. Racing up off (turn) two on lap 49, Shell got under Peters for the fifth spot.

With Finchum headed to his fifth straight Late Model Stock victory, some late-race controversy created drama at the finish. Both Finchum and VanDyke had taken the white flag, and once the race leader receives the white flag even if the caution waves, the race is over.

Behind Finchum and VanDyke, contact between Stiltner and McCarty sent Stiltner spinning in turn two, and with nowhere to go Shell ran into Stiltner on the backstretch in a cloud of smoke.

Since Friday night, the ending of the LMSC race has been under review by Kingsport Speedway officials.

We have determined that the leader, Chad Finchum, did – in fact – receive the white flag prior to the caution. The caution lights were illuminated (signaling that the caution was out) just after the leader crossed the start/finish line. Therefore, the race was official per Kingsport Speedway and NASCAR Whelen All-American Series rules.

Also under review was the incident on the backstretch that triggered the caution between the No. 22, No. 5 and No. 97. We have concluded that those three cars must be placed as the last cars on the lead lap, as they were part of the caution, as outlined by Speedway rules. The updated results are below. All results and points will be updated to reflect these changes.

1. 19 Chad Finchum; 2. 15 Kres VanDyke; 3. 66 Austin Peters; 4. 60 Justin Fontaine; 5. 150 Nate Monteith; 6. 64 Tyler Goodwin; 7. 26 Joey Trent;
8. 5 Ronnie McCarty; 9. 97 Zeke Shell; 10. 22 Keith Stiltner; 11. 33 Rick Pannell; 12. 38 Zack Walton; 13. 35 Sam Steffey; 14. 76 Allen Hawkins; 15. 19h Wayne Hale; 16. 7 Lee Tissot; 17. 14 Chris Tunnell; 18. 94 Luke Fox