Fogleman Wins PASS South Opener at Anderson

24 of the 26 Super Late Model drivers on hand hit the track for qualifying and a familiar face was back on top of the charts as Andy Loden turned a 14.949 second lap to earn his eighth-career PASS South pole, a series record. After the top 10 redraw Loden went from first to third for the start, with Dylan Kwasniewski and Devin Jones starting from the front row.

At the green Kwasniewski got the jump, leading the field across the stripe on first lap. After a few circuits Loden took over the second spot, putting Jones back to third. On the 12th lap, Jones drove his way back to second, dropping Loden to third with Justin Wakefield fourth and Ryan Blaney up to fifth after starting ninth.

Justin Wakefield pulled his #98 machine into the pits and out of the event on lap 21, moving Jody Lavender into the fifth position. 10 laps later Loden moved back into the second position, putting Jones back to third.

The first yellow of the race flew on lap 44 when Bradley McCaskill slowed down the back stretch, coming to a stop in turn four on the high side.On the first restart of the night, the field scrambled as Jones’ car initially didn’t come up to speed. Everyone was able to avoid disaster and Jones was able to get going, losing several spots in the process. Up front Kwasniewski held serve as the leader but Blaney worked his way to second and then put pressure on for the lead until the yellow flew for the second time when Jones went around in turn two on lap 54.

With Blaney to his outside, Kwasniewski took the green flag but Blaney held strong as the field went two by two for a few laps. Blaney ended up with the lead with Kwasniewski second, and Lavender third.

On lap 60, the third yellow flag flew as Heath Hindman went around in turn four. Blaney was able to get a great restart, holding on to the lead over Kwasniewski as Fogleman worked his way to the third position. Shortly after the restart, Loden worked his way to fourth, putting Lavender back to fifth. At lap 69 Fogleman drove to second, pulling Loden to third and dropping Kwasniewski to fourth.

Just before lap 100 Loden was able to work his way around Blaney to take the lead. Fogleman also moved past Blaney,shuffling him back to third. At lap 129, the yellow flag came out for the third time as Tim Pinion went around in turn two. On the restart, Loden and Fogleman fought hard for track position, but a spin by Chase Oliver in turn one slowed the field for the fourth time without a lap completed.

Fogleman took the lead when the field went back to green as Peltier slipped his way to second around Loden. On lap 132 though, the yellow flag flew for the fifth time as Oliver went around in turn four.

Just after the restart, with Fogleman out front, Peltier and Loden appeared to make contact coming off turn four, and while trying to save his mount Loden hit another car, sliding up the track and bringing out the yellow flag for the sixth time. The damage ended the fast timer’s night.

Yellow flag fever continued as the seventh caution flew on lap 137 for a spin in turn four by Steve Legendre, and came out again on lap 139 when Jimmy Weller went around in turn one.

Over the remaining circuits Peltier battled hard trying to stay with Fogleman, but even a last-lap attempt to take the top spot wasn’t enough as Fogleman took the checkered flag first.

“I am just awfully proud of this whole organization,” said Fogleman in victory lane. “We put together a different plan this winter, and to have it all come together for Shark Racing Development, it is cool. It just all fell in place.”

“We didn’t have the best car tonight, but we had the best luck on cautions. Preston definitely had a better car. We were just a little free getting in, but we will take a win any way we can get it.”

While there was some late-race hard racing between Fogleman and Peltier, there wasn’t any bad blood between the drivers.”Preston is a racer. We race good together. He isn’t going to turn you all the way around, and I am not going to turn him all the way around.”

After Peltier gave congratulations to Fogleman for the great run on the track, he was still wishing it was him celebrating the win, not a second-place finish.

“We came here to win,” said the 2010 PASS South and PASS National champ. “Unfortunately I think the alternator stopped working and the battery went dead. At first I thought we broke a valve spring or something on one of those restarts when Andy (Loden) and I got together on the front stretch. I started to accelerate and the thing just stopped. I tried to salvage what I could. “I love racing with Fogleman. It is fun!.”

Grant Davidson crossed the line in third after a fairly quiet run up to the podium. “We just kind of hung back there,” said Davidson. “We were really good on old tires and I felt like we would be strong at the end, so we just rode around the first 100 laps. They started coming to us. Then, we had a left front going down, so we were bouncing around on the last 15 laps. Hopefully we can work from this and move forward.”

Roger Lee Newton and Kwasniewski rounded out the top five.

The PASS South Super Late Model Series will be back in action on Saturday, March 26th, for the South Carolina Clash at Dillon Motor Speedway (SC), and then will head to North Wilkesboro Speedway (NC) April 7th – 9th for the 300-lap “The Race” event, with $75,000 on the line for the driver who can cross the checkered flag first.

Results:
1 – 4 Jay Fogleman
2 – 29 Preston Peltier
3 – 00 Grant Davidson
4 – 33 Roger Lee Newton
5 – 3 Dylan Kwasniewski
6 – 20 Steven Legendre
7 – 2x Ralph Carnes
8 – 91 Heath Hindman
9 – 10 Ryan Blaney
10 – 56 Gus Dean
11 – 48 John Batten
12 – 35 Devin Jones
13 – 115 Jody Lavender
14 – 5x Chase Oliver
15 – 29 Andy Loden
16 – 05 Alex Fleming
17 – 42 Tim Pinion
18 – 09 Randy Gentry
19 – 23 Jimmy Weller
20 – 71 Jimmy Doyle
21 – 2 Gray Gaulding
22 – 89 Sean Shalvoy
23 – 18 Bradley McCaskill
24 – 98 Justin Wakefield
25 – 7 Dana White
26 – 5 Spencer Wauters