Devin Steele locked himself into the second round of the Championship Playoffs during round one of the Late Model Stock Cars at Franklin County Speedway during the first race back in April and as racing for the month of May began he kept everyone else out of the chase with another victory.
Steele started on the outside pole after a four car invert put Daryn Cockram on the pole. Fast qualifier Kyle Dudley would start fourth with Jonathan Hall starting in third position. Excitement started before the green flag even waved as it appeared that Dudley’s throttle had hung and he hit the outside wall in turn three hard. It would have ended his day but he had a backup car on pit road and after a delay, he was ready to hit the track for the 60-lap feature.
The front two rows took off from the start with Steele grabbing the lead on the outside line and as he pulled away just a little bit from Cockram the second place car went south. Cockram’s car almost immediately from the drop of the green flag developed a smoking issue but it didn’t appear he was losing any fluid and he was able to continue. Cockram would eventually surrender the second spot and head to pit road for what turned out to be a hole in the oil pan.
Steele was out front at this point with Dudley making a hard charge from the rear wasting no time getting up to second place. Steele would lead a few more laps before Dudley charged by him to the lead. Dudley survived a couple of cautions that slowed the race and each time pulled out to a healthy lead. As the laps wound down though it appeared as if his car had began to go away and Steele’s car was coming in at the right time.
Steele had to fend off a hard challenge from Ricky Gillespie who started at the back of the field and raced up to take second away from Steele at one point. Once he cleared Gillespie, Steele set his sights on Dudley and his second win of the season. Steele looked like he was going to run out of laps but on the final lap was able to give Dudley a nudge on each end of the track and was side by side with him coming off of turn four and headed to the checkered flag.
Dudley would take the checkered flag first as he appeared to have denied Steele his second win in a row. However as the tech process began the weight of Dudley’s backup car came into question and after refueling the car as allowed by rules his weight came up ten pounds shy on overall weight and twenty pounds light on the right side weight rule. Dudley’s win was stripped and Steele after passing tech was declared the winner.
Gillespie had grabbed third on the track but the disqualification moved him up to a second place finish, his best of the season. Hall moved up to a third place finish with Josh Leedy fourth and Joey Phillips finishing fifth. Ryan Collins made his first start on the high banked oval and after a couple of mid-race spins he put together a sixth place effort. Defending track champion Wesley Thomason finished seventh after a day of struggles and Cockram was credited with eighth in the nine car field.
Late Models return to action for another 60-lap affair this Sunday May 22nd at 3pm.
Late Models:
1 – Devin Steele #17
2 – Ricky Gillespie #18
3 – Jonathan Hall #25
4 – Josh Leedy #03
5 – Joey Phillips #12
6 – Ryan Collins #3
7 – Wesley Thomason #08
8 – Daryn Cockram #1
DQ – Kyle Dudley #4
