HENDERSONVILLE, NC :: The top drivers in the UARA-STARS Late Model Stock Tour proved once again on Thursday night why the series is considered the top short track developmental series for aspiring talent in motorsports. Out of the top ten drivers in the Denny Hamlin Short Track Showdown (DHSTS) at Richmond International Raceway, only one competitor was not a UARA-STARS regular, series graduate, or top-level NASCAR competitor.
Last year’s UARA Rookie of the Year and championship runner-up Dillon Bassett led the field to the green from the Stock Car Steel & Aluminum Pole, outrunning NASCAR Sprint Cup Series winners and champions like Kyle Busch, Tony Stewart and Matt Kenseth who have thousands of laps around the Richmond oval. While Bassett faded from his first-place starting spot, he ran in the top ten all night long and finished 7th in his first appearance in the DHSTS. “I never in my wildest dreams believed I could outrun guys like Kyle Busch and Tony Stewart in a fastest lap competition like qualifying for this race was,” said the younger of the two racing Bassett brothers. “I thought my first two UARA wins and our rookie title last year was big, but it just set me up for this. I’m just blessed to have the team I do and have the great racecars they’ve been giving me for the past few years. We didn’t quite have it dialed in for the race pace, but they certainly knew we were here.”
For the second consecutive year, UARA-STARS driver Ben Rhodes was also one of the top late model regulars in the finishing order. Rhodes finished Thursday night’s event in third place, behind winner Kyle Busch and Sprint Cup Series driver David Ragan. Rhodes’ teammate and the defending race winner, Tony Stewart, fell out of the event with crash damage and spent the rest of the race in the Hawk-McCall Motorsports pit area cheering the young driver on. “We sat on top of the last practice until the last few minutes when Kyle Busch knocked us off,” said Rhodes. “We were really happy with the car. On a restart we ended up three wide going into turn one with me on the bottom. Tony was in the middle and got crowded down the track into me. I felt bad because I thought we both had race-winning cars, but Tony made sure to tell me through my spotter that I didn’t do anything wrong and he wanted me to go up and win the race. I was trying a lot of different things there at the end of the race. Some things Tony was telling me worked, but some weren’t with the way my car was handling. I did find something there in the final laps that really worked well that I think I can apply next year and get to the front quicker.”
Current UARA-STARS point leader Ronnie Bassett, Jr., was also in the mix for the win all night long. The elder Bassett battled with Stewart, Ragan, fellow UARA drivers Garrett Campbell and David Garbo all night long before finishing the event in fourth, just ahead of Campbell, Garbo, and his younger brother Dillon. It was Bassett’s second time in the event, an invitation-only race for the region’s top teams and drivers. “Chris Lawson and my guys really busted their butts this weekend, and they did a fantastic job of giving me a car that I could run up front with and challenge for the win,” said Bassett, Jr. “It’s always fun to race against guys like Kyle and Tony and to realize that God’s blessed me enough to be able to learn how to race at a level like theirs through our years in UARA. As much as we wanted to win, and after last year’s engine problems, it feels really good to come out here and be the second late model regular in the rundown. It was just like running a tour race with all the guys we were racing against.”
Other UARA-STARS drivers and alumni in the event included Jeremy Burns (9th), Clint King (11th), Scott Turlington (27th, -1 lap) and Taylor Stricklin (29th, accident). UARA teams were also well-represented with their respectively prepared cars for drivers like David Ragan (Jamie Yelton’s Fat Head Racing) and Tony Stewart (Hawk-McCall Motorsports).
On Sunday, in ARCA Racing Series competition, defending UARA series champion Travis Swaim made his first career series start at Salem Speedway in a Bill Kimmel-prepared Ford. Swaim finished fifth in his first visit to the high-banked Indiana half-mile oval and may make other starts for the team later in the season. He out-performed drivers like ARCA all-time championship leader Frank Kimmel and Venturini Motorsports drivers John Wes Townley, Milka Duno, and former part-time UARA competitor and race polesitter Justin Boston.
“To see our drivers to go big events like this, Martinsville, Daytona, etc., and run as well as they do shows just how well our teams and drivers are prepared for the next level of racing by racing with the UARA,” said series president Kerry Bodenhamer. “Our track record continues to speak for itself. Our graduates have made it to the top levels of motorsports with top teams and good success. Out of our current series regulars, it wouldn’t surprise me to see one of them winning at least one Sprint Cup Series championship within the next ten years.”
Other UARA-STARS competitors and alumni in action this past weekend included most recent tour winner Brodie Kostecki, Brandon Jones and Corey Lajoie in NASCAR K&N Pro Series action. Jones and Lajoie failed to finish while Kostecki finished 25th in his K&N Pro Series debut. Rhodes was also in the K&N Pro Series event but was forced to the garage with an oil leak while running in the top ten.
