Charlotte, NC 8/20/12- The fans of the South Boston (VA) Speedway were treated to a barn burner of a race Saturday night as Kyle Grissom held off a hungry field of drivers to score his second win in a row and fourth of the season. Rookie Nate Caruth made things very interesting on the final lap before settling for second. The runner-up finish is a career best for the Iowa native driving for NASCAR driver Brad Keselowski. Jody Lavender in his first start of 2012 rounded out the podium with his third place run.
Brandon Ward set fast time during qualifying before redrawing eighth putting veteran Jay Fogleman on the pole and Ross Kenseth to his outside to take the green flag for the 150 lap event. Kenseth got the jump on the start putting his #25 machine out front for the first nineteen laps before Fogleman raced side-by-side with Kenseth to take his turn leading. Meanwhile it was Steve Wallace who, “went where no man has gone before”, as he piloted his #66 machine to the high side of field up against the outside wall of the South Boston Speedway going from eleventh to the taking the lead on lap thirty-one. Several laps later series newcomer John Gibson would bring the yellow out for the first time of the night on lap thirty nine when he pulled to a stop on the front straightaway after making contact with the outside wall.
Wild racing throughout the field would ensue as each and every driver would take the lead of Steve Wallace attempting to make their machine work on the high side around the 4/10th mile oval. Lap after lap the field fanned out from top to bottom through the turns making for superior racing throughout the entire twenty-three car starting field. The continuous side-by-side racing saw rookie Nate Caruth eventually take the lead from Wallace just past the halfway point before finally on lap eighty-seven, Trey Mitchell stopped in the middle of turns three and four forcing series officials to display the yellow flag once again. Mitchell, who never ran outside the top four, pulled his machine to pit road to the attention of his crew before calling it a night due to mechanical problems.
With Wallace fading, championship points leader, Kyle Grissom took advantage of a good restart on lap eighty-eight to take the lead and never look back. Several cautions plagued the field including an incident between championship contenders Preston Peltier and Jay Fogleman on lap 108 battling it for fifth. Peltier would go around and bring out the yellow on lap 112, but it was Fogleman that would struggle to a disappointing eighth place finish while Peltier would recover to finish in the top five once again. A final incident considered the “big one” on lap 117 put the close racing in check as a wreck involving Stephen Burg Jr., Garrett Campbell, Joe Boyd, Bill Catania, and Kevin Powell ended the night for several drivers. From this point on, green flag racing concluded the 150 event ending a wild yet superior night of PASS South super late model racing.
Next up for the “BIG BOYS WITH THE BAD FASTTOYS” PASS South Super Late Model Series is the annual Labor Day Classic 125 this year at the Caraway Speedway in Sophia, North Carolina on Saturday night September 1st. For more information on the PASS South Series or any of the PASS sanctioned series visit www.proallstarsseries.com.