|
Peyton Taylor took the lead from Jared Landers around lap 4 and then led the rest of the way to take the win in the Bad Boy Mowers Mid-America Modified Championship in his Taylor-Shaw. The first 48 laps of the 50 lapper went caution-free and Jesse Stovall's spin with 2 laps remaining was the only caution of the race. For 20 laps before that, most eyes were on Jeremy Payne.
Starting Line-up:
777 Jared Landers - 01 Peyton Taylor
99T Eric Turner - 74 Jeremy Payne
75 Terry Phillips -73 Shawn Walsh
49 Robby Arnold -18 Jack Sullivan
96T RC Whitwell - 01s Brandon Smith
51 Eddie Martin - 00EH Steve Arpin (by the way, someone typo-ed Arpin in the race on a previous qualifying night, he didn't make it in until Saturday night. The other 00, Jesse Stoval was the one who made it earlier.)
1V Johnny Virden - 5T Jeff Taylor
8M Michael Murphree - 66 Bill Frye
60B Mike Bowers - L51 Jason Wilkey
28 Ronnie Jeffries - 51 Richie Tosh
8 Bryan Sugg -87 Kevin Salter
00 Jesse Stovall - F1 Tyson Franks
Payne was in a GRT #74 team car to Terry Phillips. Payne ran fifth for a while early on and had to fight off Robby Arnold to stay there. Around lap 10, he caught and passed Turner. By lap 15, he caught his teammate Phillips and they battled with their GRTs while the Shaws of P. Taylor and Landers led the way. Peyton opened up a straight-a-way lead before long. He caught the first lapped car on lap 19. Payne finally cleared Phillips and went chasing after Landers through the lapped traffic. On lap 27, Payne caught Landers while they were both trying to lap Bryan Sugg. When lap 30 got in the books, Payne had gone around the outside of Landers to take 2nd but there were 6 lapped cars and a straight-a-way between him and P. Taylor.
With 19 to go it looked like Payne was beginning to close a little bit. The best battle was Brandon Smith (driving Peyton Taylor's Bay Boy Mowers #01 that won the $20,000 race last year) and Jack Sullivan who were not far behind Turner in fifth and not much ahead of Arnold and Eddie Martin who were battling for eighth. With 7 to go, P. Taylor's lead was down to half-a-straight and just two lapped cars. With 4 to go the lead was 10 car lengths and one lapped car. As Payne snuck in closer, Stovall spun off turn two and the first caution waved and set up a green-white-checker finish.
The restart order was: 01-74-777-75-99T-18-01s-51-49-5T-66-1v-73-00EH-60B
On the restart, they lined out Taylor-Payne-Landers by the start finish line. Turn two was giving the field fits by this time and Landers hit a spot off turn two near where Stovall had spun and it wiggled his car. On top of that, he no longer had that element of surprise happening for him and Peyton drove two strong laps to take the win with Payne, 2nd. Landers slipped a little in the closing laps and Phillips took third with Smith the big mover in the 2 laps coming from 7th to finish 4th. Landers just held off Turner's Allen Motorsports Chassis to take 5th. Jack Sullivan was 7th with Arnold and Bill Frye side-by-side for 8th and I don't know who was scored in the spot. Martin rounded out the top ten in a D&M Chassis. He and Turner were the only non-GRT/Shaws in the top ten. Shawn Walsh was 11th.
Restarts at Batesville can make or break you. So many times I've watched guys who had been running well in a transfer spot only to loose it on a late race restart. It's one of those things about Batesville that drives outsiders nuts. The track is so momentun dependent. You have hit your line, stay of the brake and don't wiggle at all and do it all through a double-wide restart with people gunning for your spot from all sides if you're in 7th or 8th.
Case-in-point this year, was 15-year old Timothy Culp from West Monroe, Louisiana. In the final 25-lap qualifying A main to get the last eight qualifiers, Culp was driving a great race. He was seventh and putting the heat on the 6th place car. Then, caution, with 4 laps to go. It happened again. He got out of rythm for just a lap and chased the car, 2 cars passed him that quick. If you slow for just a second at Batesville, forget it. Still, Culp finished ninth at one of the toughest shows to make anywhere and we're pretty proud of him for that. The Culp's don't shy away from competition. Tim's going to be one tough guy to beat in just a year or two. Watch...
14-year old Brandt Barksdale was also trying to make this show and had problems with his car in his heat and couldn't start his B.
Kyle Pleasant was coming to Batesville but the big yellow hauler was in the shop so he open trailer-ed it to ArkLaTex instead. The way night one went, he probably wishes he made Batesville instead. He had an early exit in his heat that left him 66th out of 68 qualifiers. He ran 2nd at ArkLaTex's first Modified Madness to BJ Robinson but since then has struggled there. Michael Robertson's crew was also headed to Batesville but just couldn't get ready by Thursday. The had trouble at ArkLaTex on Friday but I heard they were very strong running a V6 engine on Saturday and went from last to a qualifier win last night which meant he started the A in one of the first five spots. Most places have outlawed V6s in Mods. They are so much lighter in the front end. Need to come up with a 100 pound weight-add on deal to even that out. They struggle on a tacky track but are hard to beat on a dry-slick track. BJ Robinson -- another racer who has done well at Batesville -- stayed at the home track too. He got wrecked on Friday night in his heat.
|
