Wesley Johnson took the pole, and never looked back in the season opener at East Carolina Motor Speedway, dominating the 50-lap Late Model Stock feature to take early momentum in the race for the 2018 championship.
Johnson, who took pole with a time of 15.055 seconds, never looked back once the flag was waved and completely dominated the race, with no cautions to help the field catch him.
After a number of cars had engine issues, only seven cars competed in the 2018 season opener, but the seven they had put on a good show for the fans in attendance.
“It was great, the setup started leaving us with about 20 to go,” Johnson told Race22. “I had to use the brake to make it better off the corner towards the end, but we will be back next week to try and figure it out again.”
Rusty Daniels finished second after a plethora of problems plagued him to the point where he was unable to qualify and had to start in the rear of the field.
“We had everything in the world go wrong today,” Daniels said. “We changed all the electronics and had a radiator leaking. Just everything in the world went wrong and we didn’t even qualify. I am pretty pleased with second.”
Third place was Jeff Shifflett, who was running second for a large margin of the race until Daniels’ car came to him.
“Not a bad run, we kinda missed the setup a little bit, I had it set up for there being clouds,” Shifflett said. “Here come the sun out, and it raised the track temperature about twenty degrees more than I expected.”
When the green flag waves at ECMS next weekend, a full field is expected, with many cars still being prepared, and many regulars not having their cars ready yet, or suffering problems throughout the week.
Final LMSC Results:
- Wesley Johnson
- Rusty Daniels
- Jeff Shifflett
- Thomas Burbage
- Justin Gill
- Maddy Ryan
- Kenneth Mercer
