{"id":13067,"date":"2012-08-18T16:34:29","date_gmt":"2012-08-18T16:34:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/?p=13067"},"modified":"2012-08-18T16:34:29","modified_gmt":"2012-08-18T16:34:29","slug":"smith-defends-demolition-derby-title-buttrick-runs-away-with-50-lap-sportsman-spectacular-1k","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/front-page-news\/smith-defends-demolition-derby-title-buttrick-runs-away-with-50-lap-sportsman-spectacular-1k\/","title":{"rendered":"Smith Defends Demolition Derby Title; Buttrick Runs Away with 50- Lap Sportsman Spectacular, $1K"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The back end of Ronnie Smith\u2019s Crown Victoria was completely crunched, folded up nearly beyond the back tires. \u00a0And this was the winning car. \u00a0Welcome to the Demolition Derby. \u00a0Smith, a former Allen Turner Pro Late Model champion, successfully defended the Demo Derby title he won last year, thrilling a capacity crowd along the way. \u00a0\u201cI do it for the fans,\u201d Smith said. \u201cI came out here and tested the other day. No, I\u2019m just kidding.\u201d \u00a0The \u201cMaster of Disaster\u201d had to do some improvising late in the crash fest when the throttle became stuck wide open. \u00a0Smith was forced to run with his brake. Amazingly enough, it worked to perfection as he finished off the win when he nearly put Robert Balkum\u2019s camouflage car on its side. \u00a0Smith crawled out of the wreckage and lifted his hands high as the fans roared with delight.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis (win) is right up there with the rest of \u2019em because the fans enjoy it the most,\u201d Smith said. \u201cIf it wasn\u2019t for these guys, we couldn\u2019t do this.\u201d \u00a0Escambia County fire officials hosed down the front straightaway, preparing a slippery asphalt surface for the 11 junkyard dogs. \u00a0Their services\u00a0wouldn’t\u00a0have been needed last week when this program was originally scheduled before showers drenched the oval.<\/p>\n

Track officials were concerned earlier Friday that a second postponement was in the cards when thunderstorms rolled through Pensacola. \u00a0Thankfully, the rain broke in the early part of the afternoon and a jam-packed show went off without a hitch.<\/p>\n

Faster Pastor<\/strong><\/p>\n

For once, Josh Lipscomb was lost for words. \u00a0The head pastor at Liberty Church \u2014 Blue Angel campus\u2014didn\u2019t need to say much. The No. 11 he was driving spoke loud enough. \u00a0Lipscomb cruised to Victory Lane inaugural Faster Pastor Race that saw four local pastors and United Cerebral Palsy Northwest Florida President\/CEO Sherry White help raise money for UCP. \u00a0\u201cIt was incredible,\u201d Lipscomb said. \u201cI don\u2019t know how to explain it. It was a great experience. It\u2019s a dream I\u2019ve always had and it\u2019s great to see it come to fruition.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Lipscomb pulled away to more than a straightaway lead in the middle of the eight-lap feature, there was a great four-car battle for second. \u00a0Track chaplain and Liberty Church associate pastor Wayne Butts eventually got the position and held on to it to make it a Liberty Church 1-2 sweep. \u00a0\u201cThis was a great cause,\u201d Butts said, \u201cand we can\u2019t thank the car owners enough for entrusting us rookies with their cars that they treasure so greatly.\u201d \u00a0White, despite being terrified to get behind the wheel, was ecstatic that UCP benefitted so immensely. \u00a0\u201cIt has been a pleasure. I wanna thank Tim Bryant and Pat (Bryant) and all the Five Flags fans. It was a great night for UCP.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sportsmen<\/strong><\/p>\n

Steve Buttrick continues to be a puzzle his rivals cannot piece together. \u00a0The Cantonment driver hoisted his sixth checkered flag of the season in the Sportsman division Friday at Five Flags Speedway. \u00a0This win was much more special than any of his previous five victories. \u00a0Buttrick, the two-time defending Sportsman Snowball Derby champion, won the 50-lap Sportsman Spectacular and collected $1,000 for the victory. \u00a0Buttrick went from third to first and took the lead near Lap 15 when something broke on then-leader Brannon Fowler\u2019s No. 00 and second place Randy Thompson couldn\u2019t avoid Fowler. \u00a0\u201cI\u2019m sorry for Brannon and Randy,\u201d the humble Buttrick said. \u201cI guess Brannon broke and Randy was too close. I was barely able to avoid it.\u201d \u00a0Once Buttrick did, though, no one could make him break a sweat.<\/p>\n

Shanna Ard tried his hardest, taking several quality looks in and out of turns, but it was to no avail. \u00a0\u201cSteve Buttrick is the hardest person out here to race. He\u2019s hard to catch,\u201d said Ard, who finished runner-up. \u201cI gave it everything I had. I can\u2019t ask for anything better than this except I wish I won. I need that money.\u201d \u00a0Buttrick was happy to pocket the payday, but also was pleased to be battling against Ard. \u00a0\u201cIt was great racing with Shanna,\u201d Buttrick said. \u201cI had a lotta fun and this was a great turnout.\u201d \u00a0The standing-room only house saw most of the field ride for the first half of the race.<\/p>\n

Once it reached halfway, though, strategies were abandoned. Action was furious near the back of the pack, plus the battle of third was one to watch all night long. \u00a0Calvin Cook and Jimmy Goodwin beat and banged all around the oval until Cook finally finished on the podium. \u00a0Ard had his hands full with Michael Couture early on in the second half of the race until the field reached Lap 33. \u00a0Couture was trying to take over second from Ard and the pair touched numerous times until Couture slid up the racetrack and slammed against the Turn 1 wall hard.<\/p>\n

Modifieds<\/strong><\/p>\n

Donnie Hamrac didn\u2019t let a little thing like a bad roll of the die get him frustrated. \u00a0Hamrac backed up his fast-qualifying time of 17.935 seconds by capturing his second checkered flag of the season in the 25-lap Modified feature Friday at Five Flags. \u00a0Hamrac started near the tail end after a disappointing 10 on the die set the 11-car field\u2019s invert. The series points leader avoided some early cautions and expertly worked his way through traffic. \u00a0\u201cI gotta thank my crew first,\u201d Hamrac said. \u201cWe had it loaded up last week, ready to go and had some trouble. We went back to the shop, worked on our notes and it showed today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hamrac wasn\u2019t the only one. Several drivers had hotrods, which caused for some tenuous moments at the start. \u00a0It took three starts to get one lap under green as cautions kept flying because of aggressive driving that saw four-wide action going in and out of the turns. \u00a0Kevin Chase from nearby Gulf Breeze led the opening laps until Milton\u2019s Chris Cotto took over the point. \u00a0Cotto led for the next 15 laps until Hamrac and Brandon Howell (Lucedale, Miss.) freight-trained him down the back straightaway with Hamrac taking the lead on Lap 19 in the outside groove. \u00a0Howell chased Hamrac, but could never pull alongside the red No. 8. \u00a0\u201cI wish we could\u2019ve won, but congrats to Donnie for a great race,\u201d Howell said. \u201cI just hope we can get a little better and run this thing up front next time out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bombers<\/strong><\/p>\n

Gary Goodwin figured out the best way to erase the nightmare of his last race: Just win baby. \u00a0The defending Bombers track champion won his fifth feature of the year. It was Goodwin\u2019s first race since July 27 when a scary crash on the front stretch did some serious damage. \u00a0\u201cIt sure is a lot better finish than last week, for sure,\u201d Goodwin joked. \u201cThanks to the crew for helping me out. They did a fine job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Active duty Marine Michael Nelson finished second. He was certainly pleased with the runner-up finish, but was frustrated he couldn\u2019t track down Goodwin. \u00a0\u201cIt was a fun race,\u201d Nelson said. \u201cWe couldn\u2019t catch the 23, but we\u2019ll settle for second.\u201d \u00a0Kenny Williams, who was involved in that collision with Goodwin, rebounded for a third-place finish. \u00a0\u201cI have to thank everybody that asked about me,\u201d Williams said. \u201cI can\u2019t quit for some reason and I love it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The back end of Ronnie Smith\u2019s Crown Victoria was completely crunched, folded up nearly beyond the back tires. \u00a0And this was the winning car. \u00a0Welcome […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"publish_to_discourse":"","publish_post_category":"","wpdc_auto_publish_overridden":"","wpdc_topic_tags":"","wpdc_pin_topic":"","wpdc_pin_until":"","discourse_post_id":"","discourse_permalink":"","wpdc_publishing_response":"","wpdc_publishing_error":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[56,22,3,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-5-flags-speedway","category-featured","category-front-page-news","category-race-results"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13067"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13067\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13070,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13067\/revisions\/13070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}