Dominion Raceway produced its third different winner in the NWAAS Late Model division located just outside of Thornburg Virginia. Sergio Pena who was a NASCAR Drive for Diversity Graduate (10,11,14) scored the win in stunning fashion capitalizing from a late race restart to end up in Victory Lane.

In a race filled with cautions, twenty-seven Late Models took the green flag lead by Trent Barnes who assumed the races pole position from a six car invert. Jeff Oakley was the man who was fastest in qualifying posting a lap at 14.973 sec or 96.173 mph. Tyler Hughes was a little off the pole speed by a bit more than two tenths was second, Sergio Pena, Nick Smith and Doug Barnes Jr all had respectable efforts in their qualifying runs made up the five best on the grid.

Racing was underway and it was just in the first turn before the race saw its first caution negating the start to the race. Barry Dean’s night was done after showing major damage from colliding with a fellow competitor. Back to racing and the races leader, Trent Barnes did not get the start he needed as Doug Barnes took advantage to capture the race lead.

While the field beat and banged to sort itself out, the race saw its second lead change on lap ten as Nick Smith helped himself to the front of the field. Lap seventeen went up on the board and out came the caution when qualifying pole sitter Jeff Oakley and Zeb Pixley got together out over in turn one ending Oakley’s night of having a fast race car. Soon after, green flag laps were being counted once again as Smith lead the field into turn one.

Tyler Hughes looked to size the leader up but soon fell in tow to log in some laps. On back Doug Barnes and Sergio Pena kept pace with the leaders before the race had yet another caution for the broken hub of Tyler Daniels. Green flag waves for the field and once again, Nick Smith and Tyler Hughes would go at it. Smith would hold off the intentions of Hughes but couldn’t hold off the races very next caution period as Wes Green went around. From this point, track officials cited that caution laps were being counted in the hundred lap feature.

Back at it again and so was Hughes after race leader Nick Smith where rain drops instigated the hardest racing for the lead nearing the halfway point. But Smith would stay stingy over his race lead as yet another race caution took over the track. This time Mike Ganoe was victim of a hard hit to the outside retaining wall ending his night at Dominion Raceway. With forty-one circuits remaining, Smith took the green with Hughes all over him chasing in second.

As the battle began to heat up, Robert Bruce’s spin brought out the caution momentarily. On the ensuing restart, just twenty laps remained as Smith is slow getting going and Tyler Hughes from the outside takes the race lead. Soon after Nick Smith is on pit road changing a right rear tire while Michael Hardin makes his presence known letting Hughes know he’s there and would like to lead. Sergio Pena, Doug Barnes, both battling hard for position as was Trent Barnes and Doug Liberman when suddenly Liberman goes around in a race filled with cautions.

After one more caution period and a new race leader in Michael Hardin, race officials decided to quit counting caution laps setting up a five lap shootout for the race win. Hardin took down low while Pena took the cone and went high. Green flag waves and Hardin would show the way but here would come Sergio Pena. From the inside, Pena would move race leader Hardin high and clear him to take the race lead.

From there, Pena never looked back and scored the race win, Doug Barnes was second, Michael Hardin held on for third, Eddie Johnson finished fourth and son Chris Johnson scored fifth. No doubt that Late Model racing at Dominion Raceway (while under green) is as good as you’ll find anywhere around. Having great car counts and could probably make an argument as one of if not the fastest 4/10s mile oval in the Mid Atlantic.

But none of it matters if a large portion of the race is ran under caution as this will become the talking point for weeks to come. Lets hope that this division figures it out and soon cause the potential is huge at Dominion Raceway. Late Model race action resumes on May 14th for seventy-five laps with a 7 pm start time.

Race Results:
1 #01 Sergio Pena
2 #88 Doug Barnes Jr
3 #7 Michael Hardin
4 #57 Eddie Johnson
5 #5 Chris Johnson
6 #77 Logan Jones
7 #56 Doug Liberman
8 #66 Zach Wells
9 #8 Tyler Hughes
10 #36 Owen Smith
11 #1 Trent Barnes
12 #23 Wes Green
13 #18 Chandler Sherman
14 #12 Nick Smith
15 #64 Bill Leutz
16 #9 Mark Miller
17 #29 Robert Bruce
18 #82B Cameron Burke
19 #45 Tyler Daniels
20 #82 Mike Ganoe
21 #07 Richard Storm
22 #40 Jay Penny
23 #11 Jeff Oakley
24 #50 Zeb Pixley
25 #17 Eric George
26 #89 Irwin Cook
27 #79 Barry Dean
DNS #30 Tyler Gallup