LAKE CITY, FL (5/19) - Winning one feature is difficult enough, but both Scotty Nolan and Dean Sands pulled off two feature wins in one evening. Street Stocks and Hobby Stocks held make-up features from a May 5 rainout to start off the evening of racing.
Sands started on the pole for the Streets and led every lap in a runaway win. The field strung out and other than a brief battle for fourth between David Hart and David Ponton, the race came and went quickly. The rest of the top five behind Sands was Dewey Hall, Spud Lockwood, Hart, and Ponton. In the Hobby make-up, the field lined up in the order they were running when the rain fell with two laps in the books. Nolan was leading at the time and continued that trend on the restart to win by a large margin. A battle for second between Timmy Roach, Sammy Hatcher, and Heath Walker kept those drivers occupied while Nolan sailed away. At the line it was Nolan, Roach, Walker, Hatcher, and Jerry Fortner. Heat races followed, then the regular features began.
The headline event was the third installment of the Brown Motorsports Summer Spectacular series. Timmy Roach had the pole and captured the lead with a freight train of Hobby Stocks following closely behind. Roach held off the hungry horde until lap 11 when his engine went up in smoke. John Ward became the new leader, but lasted only one lap longer when his car gave out. Now the lead belonged to Nolan, but this would not be a runaway as Heath Walker made some adjustments to his car between races that appeared to work. Walker walked Nolan down and dogged him lap after lap. Windal Clark was in his own skirmish with Sammy Hatcher and fans had plenty of action to watch. Walker was faster, but Nolan made no mistakes and beat Walker to the stripe for win number two of the night. Walker was second, Clark bested Hatcher narrowly for third, and Jeff Terrell finished fifth.
David Hart outgunned John Coffey at the start of the Street Stock main. Dean Sands rapidly rose from eighth to second in two laps and immediately pressured the leader. As the pair battled, Mark Canup broke free for third and caught the leaders. The trio diced through traffic, but Hart, who was having his best race of the 2007 season, denied his rivals lap after lap. With one turn to go for the win, however, Hart lost the handle on his #21 and went for a spin. The field had to take evasive action and Sands made contact with one of the tractor tires that marks the inside groove. Canup, however, was in no position to take advantage as he was fighting to regain control of his #95. Sands caught a fortunate bounce from the massive tire and was able to limp from the scene to cross the finish line first. Canup recovered, but in the nick of too late, and had to settle for second. Dewey Hall was third followed by Hart and Timmy Harrell.
P.J. Wiggins returned after taking some weeks off to take a wire-to-wire victory in the B-Modifieds. The most exciting moment in this event was when Kenny Blair spun coming off of turn four and broadsided the outside guardrail, doing massive damage to both car and rail. Blair, fortunately, was fine and after a few minutes of repair, the track was declared safe to race. Wiggins continued the beatdown on the restart and raced on to his second win of the season. Jake Wood finished second over a charging Ronnie Chance. Nick Kirkus and Joe Watson trailed for fourth and fifth.
Justin Carney led early in the Mini Stock feature but could not hold off Marvin Hassell and was overtaken on lap six. Hassell's moment in the spotlight was brief, though, as his car quit on him two laps later. Carney reinherited first and went on to win. Second place went to Todd Blevins, with the remainder of the top five consisting of Michael Bagley, Hassell, and Marvin Brooks.
Billy Costello had the pole, but Clyde Herron had the power and very soon had the lead in the Late Model feature. The cars immediately spread out and the race went uninterrupted from green flag to checkered flag. Herron had no equals on the track and crossed the line first by a sizable distance over runner-up Costello. Sometimes, though, the track giveth, and the post-race tech inspection taketh away and that was the case tonight. When the dust settled Costello was awarded the win. Carlton Allen was second at the pay window with Earl Boyett third, Wayne Stevens fourth, and Evan Beckton fifth.
Pure Stocks saw Shawn Taylor take a win in an absolute cautionfest. Gerald Lewis did all he could to challenge the leader during the numerous restarts, but Taylor proved stronger once the pack had momentum. The finishing order after many auto body parts were donated to the scrapyard was Taylor, Lewis, Billy Smith, Rick Reed, and Chris Rowe.
The Winged Sprint cars return to the track this Saturday along with the A-Modifieds, Mini Sprints, Street Stocks, Hobby Stocks, and Pure Stocks. For more information and 2007 race schedules please visit www.northfloridaspeedway.com.
