{"id":6746,"date":"2011-05-28T11:44:55","date_gmt":"2011-05-28T11:44:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/?p=6746"},"modified":"2011-05-28T11:44:55","modified_gmt":"2011-05-28T11:44:55","slug":"grill-wins-papa-johns-100-at-5-flags-speedway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/race-results\/grill-wins-papa-johns-100-at-5-flags-speedway\/","title":{"rendered":"Grill wins Papa John’s 100 at 5 Flags Speedway"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Chuck Corder<\/strong><\/p>\n

Augie Grill is quite the company man.<\/p>\n

His Grand American Race Cars had dominated the last 10 Super Late Model events coming into the second Blizzard Series race Friday at Five Flags Speedway.<\/p>\n

Nothing changed for the Papa John\u2019s 100. And it only got better for Grill.<\/p>\n

The Five Flags fan favorite held off a late charge from Grant Enfinger to snatch his first checkered flag in Pensacola this season, making it nine consecutive Blizzard wins for cars coming out of the GARC shop.<\/p>\n

The father-daughter battle between Donald Long and NASCAR trucks rookie Johanna Long never materialized.<\/p>\n

The pair did battle each other several times, but it was in the middle of the pack, never contesting for the lead at any point. Johanna Long finished ninth while her 48-year-old father finished 11th.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels really good to outrun one of my customers,\u201d said Grill, referring to Enfinger. \u201cIt\u2019s one of the tracks we race a lot at, so I better be good or I\u2019ll lose my ride.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grill, of course, was joking. The way the two-time Snowball Derby winner drives his No. 112, he is in no danger of surrendering his seat.<\/p>\n

Grill was terrific on each of the five restarts he led of the six cautions Friday. The one restart he struggled was when he trailed Donnie Wilson for the lead on Lap 59.<\/p>\n

Grill spun his tires, but by the time the leaders reached Turn 4, he had forced a three-wide scenario with Wilson and T.J. Reaid. Grill, the meat in the sandwich, put the hammer down and assumed a lead he never relinquished as they completed 60 laps.<\/p>\n

\u201cI about knocked the nose off with all the bumping that was going on, so I decided to go,\u201d Grill said.<\/p>\n

Grill started the feature ninth, but methodically began picking off fellow drivers one by one until he made that aggressive move.<\/p>\n

Enfinger, who was the fast car in qualifying but started 10th on the dice invert, failed to get by Grill after getting a couple of quality looks.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we could\u2019ve nailed the restarts,\u201d he surmised, \u201cI think we could\u2019ve got in front of (Grill) and held him off. We tried to go at the end, but it was a little too late.\u201d<\/p>\n

Enfinger\u2019s best look came on the restart with 83 laps complete. Grill chose the inside as he did all night. Enfinger got nose to nose until T.J. Reaid bumped him.<\/p>\n

The pair slid all over the track, but amazingly managed to not crash. It cost Enfinger valuable position and he never got back to Grill\u2019s bumper.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when the action after the action got interesting.<\/p>\n

Enfinger visibly was upset with Reaid, who finished third. As the top three got out to accept their trophies, Enfinger jumped out of his No. 82 and darted for Kyle Busch\u2019s No. 51 Reaid drives.<\/p>\n

Enfinger put his finger inside the window while his and Reaid\u2019s crews started pushing and shoving until local sheriff deputies separated the groups.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not one to say anything, but if I get somebody out of shape, I let them straighten out,\u201d Enfinger said. \u201cHe did it three times, and I didn\u2019t appreciate it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neither did the car\u2019s maker.<\/p>\n

Grill wasn\u2019t fazed too much by the post-race extracurriculars, though.<\/p>\n

He was busy appreciating his win.<\/p>\n

Papa John\u2019s 100 Results\u2014<\/strong>1. Augie Grill, 2. Grant Enfinger, 3. T.J. Reaid, 4. David Rogers, 5. Chris Davidson, 6. Bubba Pollard, 7. Mike Garvey, 8. Clay Alexander, 9. Johanna Long, 10. Donnie Wilson, 11. Donald Long, 12. D.J. VanderLey, 13. David Odell, 14. Gary Sullivan, 15. Jeremy Pate, 16. Thomas Praytor, 17. Ryan Crane, 18. Allen Karnes, 19. Scott Carlson, 20. Casey Smith, 21. Travis Kittleson, 22. Dwayne Buggay<\/p>\n

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

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

Jake Moore was content to see all the beating and banging happening in his rearview.<\/p>\n

With plenty of action behind him, Moore just cruised around the half-mile asphalt oval like it was a Sunday drive on the Gulf Coast.<\/p>\n

The Mobile native got his first win in the Modified series while Bubba Pollard and Brandon Howell finished second and third respectively.<\/p>\n

Pollard and Gerald Wilkerson took a couple of shots at each other until Pollard spun Wilkerson on the back straightaway.<\/p>\n

\u201cGerald cut us off front straightaway and nearly pushed us into the inside wall, but we let up,\u201d Pollard said. \u201cHe got sideways on the back, and I got into him. I couldn\u2019t help it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Modified 25-lap Feature Results\u2014<\/strong>1. Jake Moore, 2. Bubba Pollard, 3. Brandon Howell, 4. Todd Jones, 5. Nathan Davis, 6. Steve Buttrick, 7. Gerald Wilkerson, 8. James Patrick, 9. Kevin Peel, 10. Scott Lopez, 11. Nathan Ingersoll<\/p>\n

Sportsman<\/strong><\/p>\n

Stevie Mercer thought about retiring before this season.<\/p>\n

Good thing he didn\u2019t. Mercer made it two trips to Victory Lanes in two straight Fridays, running another dominant race once again from the front row.<\/p>\n

However, he was stripped of the win in post-race technical inspection, pushing Randy Thompson to the win.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love starting on the front row,\u201d Mercer said. \u201cIt happened last week and worked out well. I like racing, too. I\u2019m sure this year we\u2019ll trade some paint.\u201d<\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t have to worry about that too much this Friday. Thompson challenged him a few times after a pair of cautions.<\/p>\n

Thompson tried to go the long way around and the outside groove wasn\u2019t kind. It worked for a while before Thompson burned the tires off.<\/p>\n

Each time, Mercer had an answer for Thompson and pulled away.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m out here to win every race I can,\u201d Mercer said. \u201cHopefully the car can stay together, the driver stay together and we\u2019ll have a good year.\u201d<\/p>\n

A disqualification, though, is sure to put a damper on things.<\/p>\n

Sportsman 20-lap Feature Results<\/strong>\u20141. Randy Thompson, 2. Bubba Winslow, 3. Marty White, 4. Chris Nielsen, 5. Brannon Fowler, 6. Jim Pokrant, 7. Bo Resmondo, 8. Charles English, 9. Tina Davidson, 10. Johnny Greene Jr., 11. Thomas Faddis, 12. Jimmy Goodwin, 13. Justin Babb, 14. Mike Goraum, 15. Daniel Fleming, 16. Wayne Burkett, DQ. Stevie Mercer, DQ. Michael Couture<\/p>\n

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

Curtis Faircloth certainly was all smiles Friday at Five Flags.<\/p>\n

But the Pace driver knew he got a lot of help to get his fourth win in five races this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis would not have been possible without Leonard Craig Jr.,\u201d said Faircloth, who extended his points lead with another trip to Victory Lane. \u201cWe blew a motor and he helped us out so much.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brandon Burks finished second, but, like all the Bombers this year, he was admiring another dominant performance from Faircloth.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat (No.) 7 car sure is fast,\u201d Burks said.<\/p>\n

Bombers 20-lap Feature Results\u2014<\/strong>1. Curtis Faircloth, 2. Brandon Burks, 3. Kenny Williams, 4. Tally Warrick, 5. Gary Goodwin, 6. James L. Beal III, 7. Tracy Soles, 8. Leonard Craig Jr., 9. David Johnson, 10. Sam Mellema, 11. Thom Crosslin, 12. Courtney Rodrigues, 13. Robert Balkum, 14. Hunter Ward, 15. Bobby Jones<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Chuck Corder Augie Grill is quite the company man. His Grand American Race Cars had dominated the last 10 Super Late Model events coming […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","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":[13,4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-five-flags-speedway","category-race-results","category-tracks"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6746","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\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6746"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6746\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6748,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6746\/revisions\/6748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}