![\"Sportsman](\"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Sportsman-feature-winner-Patrick-Thomas-two-in-a-row-Jim-Jones-Photo-275x221.jpg\")
by Dave Westerman<\/p>\nby Dave Westerman<\/p>\n
While several other Central Florida-area tracks “cried wolf” and canceled
\ntheir racing programs late in the week due to an unfavorable weather forecast,
\nNew Smyrna Speedway used the “wait and see” attitude and it paid off as week
\nnumber six of the NASCAR Whelen All American Series went off without a hitch
\nand produced some awesome action for the nice crowd in attendance.<\/p>\n
\nA brief sprinkle just after the pit gate opened at 3:30 pm was all the race
\nteams had to put up with and what had started off as a very hot and humid
\nafternoon turned out to be a very comfortable evening.\u00a0 Fans who arrived early
\nwere treated to some special food and drink deals plus got to get an up close
\nlook at a number of cars from the Volusia County Corvette Club who also took
\npart in the parade lap before racing began.
\nThe Sportsman class continued to swell the pit area with cars as 22 showed
\nthis week and were split into a pair of heat races.\u00a0 The first was an absolute
\nbarn-burner as five cars crossed the finish line under a blanket with Daniel
\nConlin, Jr. winning by a fender.\u00a0 Ron Gustafson took the checker first in heat
\nnumber two.
\nTwenty of the 22 cars would start the 25-lap feature as Scott Bramlett would
\nmiss the show after breaking a clutch during the pace lap of his heat race
\nwhile R. J. Glaser hit the wall during the second heat and his car was too
\ndamaged to repair in time for the nightcap.\u00a0 The field inversion placed heat
\nwinners Conlin and Gustafson on row five for the start while Timmy Todd, Jr.
\nwould start from the pole flanked by Derrick Wood.
\nWood snatched the early advantage only to see Conlin, Austin Carr and Mike
\nPletka get tangled up in turn four negating the start.\u00a0 Conlin retired from
\nthe event while Carr and Pletka continued.\u00a0 The second start was much better
\nand Wood again set the early pace as the rest of the field went at it tooth
\nand nail behind him.\u00a0 The yellow flag was out on lap four when Donny Williams’
\ncar suddenly turned right and into the wall coming off turn four.\u00a0 The
\ndefending Sportsman champion’s racer was badly damaged and he said he was
\nclueless as to why the car took a quick violent turn to the right at that part
\nof the track.\u00a0 “There is also some damage to the left rear of the car that I
\nmust have gotten earlier in the race so maybe something broke there to cause
\nit… I just really don’t know right now,” said Williams.\u00a0 Second heat winner
\nGustafson dropped out of the race while the field was under caution with a
\nbroken right front ball joint.
\nWood continued to set the pace on the restart but point leader Junior Beckner
\nwas on the charge and took over the point on lap seven.\u00a0 Patrick Thomas, who
\nstarted the race from the seventh spot, moved into third on lap ten.\u00a0 One lap
\nlater Richard Goodrich had a right front tire go down in turn two and he
\nbrushed the wall while Sandy Lee spun trying to avoid getting involved.\u00a0 Lee
\ngot his spot back in the restart line-up while Goodrich pitted for a new tire
\nand returned to action only to fall out of competition a few laps later.<\/p>\n
It was now Beckner’s turn to lead a few laps but he was unable to hold off a
\nhigh-flying Austin Powell who took over the lead on lap 17.\u00a0 Howell was
\nlooking strong until he went for a wild spin all by himself in turn two on lap
\n22.\u00a0 Howell brought his car to the pit area with steam coming from the
\noverflow hose and retired from the race handing the lead back to Beckner.\u00a0 On
\nthe restart, cars began getting “loose” all around the track with caution out
\nagain on lap 23 for a spun Austin Carr in turn four and a double spin by
\nGeorge Gorham, Jr. and D. J. Farr in turn two.
\nIt turned out the problem was that the drain plug in the rear end of Carr’s
\nmachine had popped out coating the track with rear-end grease and that may
\nhave been the reason for Howell’s spin a lap earlier.\u00a0 The field was placed
\nunder a red flag as track crews worked to clean up the mess that was
\ncompletely circling the entire half-mile.
\nThat set up a fantastic green-white-checker finish with Thomas moving to the
\ninside of Beckner for the lead on the restart after Beckner said he missed a
\nshift.\u00a0 Thomas led the white flag lap but Beckner was not going to be denied
\nas he battled back on the high side only to see Thomas just nip him at the
\nline for the win, the second in a row for the Orlando driver.\u00a0 “To finish in
\nfront of a quality field like this two times straight is unbelievable,” said
\nThomas.\u00a0 “It was a hard-fought battle, I’ll tell you, and I hope the fans
\nenjoyed it because I sure did from where I was sitting, ” joked Thomas.
\nBeckner was disappointed but OK with his runner-up finish as he maintained his
\nslim point lead while Garrison, NH driver Lee picked up his second consecutive
\nthird place finish.\u00a0 Wood, driving one of the Jim Daley-owned cars out of the
\nSheppard Racing Enterprises shop in Deland while his own car is being readied,
\nheld on for a nice fourth place effort while Steve Barnes also had a great run
\nfor fifth.\u00a0 Rounding out the top ten, and the only other cars still running,
\nwere Todd, Brandon Christian, Jordan McMillon (driving his first-ever race at
\nNew Smyrna), Farr and Mike Dahm.
\nRounding out the finishers (all DNF’s) were Carr, Gorham, Howell, Goodrich,
\nTed Helmes, Pletka, Williams, Gustafson, George Dahm, and Conlin.
\nAnthony Sergi grabbed the early lead from his outside pole starting spot and
\nled the opening circuit of the 35-lap Super Late Model feature only to see the
\ncaution out just after the opening lap was completed.\u00a0 David Rogers and Tyler
\nScofield got together in turn two with Scofield going for a spin.\u00a0 Tim Sozio
\nbecame an innocent victim as he lost control trying to miss Scofield’s car and
\nhe pounded the wall, severely damaging his machine and he was done for the
\nnight.
\nSergi took over the top position on the restart but Brad May was charging hard
\nand took over the lead on lap three while Michael Lira also got by Sergi for
\nsecond.\u00a0 May began to check out until Cody Spencer spun coming off turn two on
\nlap eight.\u00a0 Spencer’s car slid down the banking and backed into the inside
\nwall causing enough damage to eliminate him from competition.
\nFrom that point it was all green flag racing as May was the class of the field
\nin the Bobby Sears Racing special.\u00a0 Sergi re-passed Lira for second on lap 28
\nbut could not close back in on the high-flying May who won his first career
\nSuper Late Model feature here after scoring several wins in Pro\/Limited Late
\nModel action over the years.\u00a0 It was a big night for May and his good friend
\nSportsman feature winner Patrick Thomas who have been involved in racing since
\nthey ran Quarter Midgets back in 1985.\u00a0 “We’ve been racing Stock Cars together
\nfor around 20 years but never actually against each other,” said Thomas.\u00a0 “I
\nguess that’s probably a good thing, he joked, but this is the very first time
\nwe’ve both won a feature on the same night so it’s a pretty cool deal,” he
\nsaid.
\nSergi claimed the runner-up spot trailed by Lira while Scofield took fourth
\nahead of Rogers, who was sporting a new black paint scheme on his car, Noah
\nCornman, Spencer and Sozio.\u00a0 Lira picked up the $100 “hard charger” bonus put
\nup by Jason’s Bug Ranch Volkswagen Service.
\nAlan Bruns of Clermont won one “for the old guys” as he led every lap of the
\nModified feature, never being seriously challenged.\u00a0 The only slow down of the
\nrace came on lap five as Matt Wheeler and Matt Jarrett literally “locked
\nhorns” after they got together on the front stretch.\u00a0 Once the cars were
\nseparated, both drivers continued.
\nBruns ran away and hid in this one to take the checker well ahead of heat
\nwinner James “Tank” Tucker.\u00a0 Jerry “The Hammer” Symons claimed third spot in
\nfront of Wheeler and Matthew Green.\u00a0 rounding out the finishers were Jarrett,
\nJim Higginbotham, Joe Jacalone, Talon Craft, Mike Dahm and George Dahm.
\nJacalone Enterprises Car Sales of St. Augustine put up a $100 “hard charger”
\naward that was claimed by Symons.
\nRobert Donaly led every lap of the all-green-flag Bomber feature only to be
\ndisqualified in tech for several infractions.\u00a0 The win was thus awarded to
\nsecond place finisher Shane Sutorus of Orlando giving him his second
\nconsecutive victory in his Saturn station wagon.\u00a0 Newcomer William Barrington
\nwas second in a Chevy Cavalier followed by the Chevy Monte Carlos of Aaron
\nOverman and Richard Fiore, Jr. and the Ford T-Bird of Megan Matheny.\u00a0 Rounding
\nout the finishers were Tommy Flinn, James Skinner and Jonathan Murphy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Dave Westerman While several other Central Florida-area tracks “cried wolf” and canceled their racing programs late in the week due to an unfavorable weather […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"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":[45,22,3,16,4,61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archives","category-featured","category-front-page-news","category-new-smyrna-speedway","category-race-results","category-racing-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22231","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\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22231"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22233,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22231\/revisions\/22233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}