It was a clean sweep for the “Peach State” on Thursday night at Eldora Speedway.
Following a three-hour rain delay, the 102 cars in attendance at the World 100 got on track for a split-field program to open the weekend, with Ashton Winger and Brandon Overton splitting the 25-lap Feature victories.
Feature 1
Polesitter Brian Shirley powered away to the early lead while second-starting Carson Ferguson raced Winger and Devin Moran for second. Winger won that battle, but not before Shirley broke out to a 1.4-second lead that Winger needed to erase.
As the race progressed, Winger went to work on trimming down the gap. With 16 laps left and traffic impeding Shirley’s progress, Winger was right on his back bumper and in position to make a bid for the lead. That’s what he did with a Turn 1 slide job, but Shirley pulled off the crossover to hold on. When Shirley got stuck behind the slower car of Justin Haley, it gave Winger another chance to try the same move, and that time, he made it stick.
A pair of cautions in the second half of the race kept Shirley in the mix, but Winger defended every move he made to earn his first trip to Victory Lane at Eldora. The win was a continuation of Winger’s recent hot streak, as the Jeff Mathews Motorsports pilot has now won 10 times since May 16, which has him leading the Hunt the Front Super Dirt Series points and sitting third with the Southern Thunder Super Dirt Series.
“I tried to leave the door open for Devin there a couple times,” Winger said. “I kept bottoming out really bad getting down into [Turn] 1 whenever I tried to enter off the curb. It was just our night, a lot of things went our way. I mean, hell, we qualified 16th and got inverted, I know that’s a big part of it. The racetrack was pretty fast, but it still raced good.”
Shirley and Brandon Sheppard rounded out the podium.
Feature 1 (25 Laps): 1. 12-Ashton Winger[3]; 2. 8S-Brian Shirley[1]; 3. 1-Brandon Sheppard[13]; 4. 22F-Chris Ferguson[8]; 5. 19R-Ryan Gustin[4]; 6. 17M-Dale McDowell[9]; 7. 25-Shane Clanton[7]; 8. 93-Carson Ferguson[2]; 9. 14JR-Trey Mills[6]; 10. 9M-Tim McCreadie[10]; 11. 49-Jonathan Davenport[25]; 12. 74X-Ethan Dotson[12]; 13. 20-Jimmy Owens[21]; 14. 44-Chris Madden[19]; 15. 5-Drake Troutman[17]; 16. 60-Dan Ebert[16]; 17. 157-Mike Marlar[22]; 18. 99-Devin Moran[5]; 19. 0-Jake O’Neil[20]; 20. 16-Sam Seawright[26]; 21. T1-Todd Morrow[24]; 22. 77-Justin Haley[23]; 23. 9C-Ches Chester[18]; 24. 10S-Garrett Smith[11]; 25. 17SS-Brenden Smith[14]; 26. 22*-Zack Mitchell[15]
Feature 2
Dustin Sorensen started on the pole to put himself in position to potentially collect the biggest win of his Late Model career, and he did his job early on by keeping Overton and Hudson O’Neal behind him on the start.
The third-year World of Outlaws Late Model Series presented by DIRTVision traveler led the first six laps until he found himself on the receiving end of an Overton slider going into Turn 1. Sorensen crossed him over exiting Turn 2 and returned the favor into Turn 3, but Overton won the drag race the next time down the frontstretch and cleared the Minnesotan for good in Turns 1 and 2.
What could have still been a strong podium finish went up in smoke moments later when engine trouble put Sorensen out of the race. That moved Tyler Erb up to second for the restart, but his time in that spot lasted less than one corner before Josh Rice blasted past on the bottom.
As Rice closed in on Overton with the laps winding down, it started to look like the race could become a replay of the North-South 100 with Rice trading sliders for the win on one of the sport’s biggest stages. The first one came with three laps to go, but Overton held on and used Dalton Cook as a pick to keep Rice behind him momentarily. Overton blocked every move Rice could think of the rest of the way and beat the No. 11 to the flag stand by a car length for his 12th win at Eldora, but his first in four years.
“I knew [Rice] was coming,” Overton said. “I kept glancing at the screen, I’m like, ‘Man, I know that’s Josh.’ He’s my buddy, we run up and down the road together, all of our crews hang out. Hell of a race, if I was going to race it out with anybody, I’m glad it was him. I just got to where I couldn’t steer. What do you do? You just hold it wide open and land wherever you land and just try to keep as much speed.”
Behind Overton and Rice, Erb held onto third to complete the podium.
Feature 2 (25 Laps): 1. 76-Brandon Overton[2]; 2. 11R-Josh Rice[11]; 3. 1T-Tyler Erb[6]; 4. 9-Nick Hoffman[7]; 5. 32-Bobby Pierce[26]; 6. 71-Hudson O’Neal[3]; 7. 111-Max Blair[12]; 8. 20TC-Tristan Chamberlain[10]; 9. 72-Michael Norris[15]; 10. C7-Adam Stricker[5]; 11. 40B-Kyle Bronson[14]; 12. 09-Michael Leach[4]; 13. 99JR-Frank Heckenast Jr[21]; 14. 10-Joseph Joiner[8]; 15. 24-Jason Riggs[16]; 16. 49M-Luke Morey[18]; 17. 8M-Dillon McCowan[17]; 18. 25F-Jason Feger[25]; 19. 59-Dillard Hatchett[19]; 20. 15S-Clay Stuckey[20]; 21. 13M-Dallon Murty[23]; 22. 44D-Dalton Cook[13]; 23. 1G-Rusty Ballenger[22]; 24. 42F-Chad Finley[9]; 25. 21G-Mario Gresham[24]; 26. 19-Dustin Sorensen[1]
UP NEXT: The World 100 continues with two more 25-lap, $12,000-to-win, preliminary Features on Friday, Sept. 11, before the 100-lap finale on Saturday, Sept. 12. Get your tickets in advance by clicking here.
