Travis Swaim picked up right where he left off last year by leading wire-to-wire and scoring the victory in Sunday’s season opener at Caraway Speedway in Sophia, North Carolina.
An inversion of the top-five put Swaim, who won the Myrtle Beach 400 last November, on the front row alongside Tyler Ankrum. Swaim rocketed out to the lead on the first lap and never looked back. Swaim was golden on the restarts as he was able to get the jump and pull away each time.
“It was a great car,” Swaim said in victory lane. “I really can’t say much about it. Sometimes you get those races where it all goes your way. We started up front and stayed up front. Peyton Sellers had a really good car. They got in a little bit of trouble there. It would have been interesting to see how it would have worked out if they didn’t have any trouble but we’ll take it. It’s a great win.”
Peyton Sellers’ day was much more eventful. Sellers set the fast lap in qualifying but was involved in a lap 34 wreck with Dalton Sargeant and Tyler Ankrum, forcing him to go to the rear of the field after the team worked to repair damage on his car. Sellers raced his way back up to second but did not have anything for Swaim.
“Hats off to those guys,” Sellers stated. “They flat put a beating on us today. I’m really proud of this team right here. We had a little bit of adversity there coming back. This was the first race for our new chassis and we’re very pleased with it so far. We’ve got a few bugs to work out.”
Sellers said the contact with Sargeant, which took both Sargeant and Ankrum out of the race, was a racing incident.
“I don’t know what happened with [Dalton Sargeant] there but they cleared him and I was up to his door so, I hate it for those guys,” Sellers remarked. “We hooked up and shot him in the inside wall. That’s racing, we had to come in and fix ours and come back. I’m proud of the day.”
Mike Darne also had to battle back from the rear of the field after pitting multiple times to repair a power steering problem. Darne and the Jim Dean team were unable to repair the car and Darne had to fight his way to a third place finish without power steering.
“10 laps in the race, the power steering went out, thought we lost a belt or something like that,” Darne explained. “We came down pit road, belt was on, it had fluid in it but the fluid was really burnt. We tried to suck the fluid out with rags during the caution and put fresh fluid in it. Nothing worked. We had absolutely zero power steering and it’s really hard to manhandle a car around here for that many laps when you don’t have any steering. It was a great car all and all.”
Kyle Dudley, who shocked the Late Model world last season with a win at Orange County Speedway and a top-10 finish at Martinsville Speedway, finished in the fourth position.
“To be up here and finish fourth to these guys, that is unbelievable considering how far we’ve come,” Dudley commented. “I think, if we can get this thing a little more dialed in, we’ll be right there with them.”
Gene Kepley finished in fifth while Justin Carroll, Patrick Coleman, Dean Fogleman, Christian Eckes, Tyler Ankrum, Dalton Sargeant, Ryan Wilson and Nathan Buttke rounded out the field. The race was slowed by cautions on three occasions. The first caution came on lap 34 when Dean Fogleman’s car spun in the apex of turns three and four. The second caution came out for the wreck on the lap 34 restart involving Sargeant and Ankrum, in which 2013 track champion Ryan Wilson also sustained damage. The caution came out one final time on lap 58 when Christian Eckes’ car came to a stop in turn one.
The race was the season opening race for Caraway Speedway’s 50th anniversary season. Caraway Speedway’s next race will be on Saturday, March 14th when the NASCAR Whelen Southern Modified Tour comes to town for the first of their three visits.
