Mark Smith topped the field to score the Lucas Oil American Sprint Car Series King of the 360’s win Saturday night at East Bay Raceway Park. Photo by Mike Horne
Mark Smith came out on top of a slide job festival to score the victory in the 17th annual King of the 360’s and 14th annual Ronald Laney Memorial as part of Winternationals 2015 at East Bay Raceway Park in Tampa, FL Saturday night.
“This is probably one of the biggest of my career. Next to winning an Outlaw show in the Prelim night at the National Open, this one ranks right up there,” said Smith when asked what winning the Ronald Laney Memorial meant to him. “We ran third the first night, second the second night; we had to win. We couldn’t go home fourth or fifth so this was it.”
Asked about being challenged for the lead, the Pennsylvania speedster replied, “We kept having those short runs and I just need to get heat in my tire. I knew once I got my tires hot, it would lock down and I could go anywhere I wanted. I just needed to be patient and wait on my car and hopefully, it would go green long enough. When it did, it was all over from there.”
With the lead exchanged over and over at both ends of East Bay Raceway Park, Smith opened the 40 lap affair from the outside of the front row. Going slide for slide with Brad Loyet the first two laps, Smith slowly distanced himself from the Vacuworx No. 05.
Jumping to third from sixth on lap 3, Aaron Reutzel began tracking down Loyet for the runner-up spot with both starting to run down Smith, who wasted no time catching the tail of the field.
Slowed on lap 10, the caution displayed again on laps 12 and 13.
With slower cars out of the mix among the top three, the restart on lap 13 saw Smith and Loyet charge low, leaving the cushion wide open for Reutzel. Running the boards into the first turns, the B.C. Funds No. 87 came out leading into the third turn, only to have Smith pull the slide job exiting turn four. Returning the favor in the next corner, Reutzel was hooked on the cushion.
Approaching the tail of the field on lap 18, Reutzel’s advantage began to wane. Stalking the No. 87, Smith closed the gap by lap 20, taking the race lead three laps later.
While Smith set sail, the race for second took hold with Johnny Herrera coming from seventh. Exchanging sliders, Herrera’s night nearly ended in the closing laps when the MVT No. 45x plowed through the cushion in turns three and four, riding the wall all the way to the front straightaway.
While Herrera was able to recover, the bobble was enough to allow Reutzel to get away for second.
“We were really good in the beginning,” said Reutzel. “I was just biding my time and taking it easy, but that one restart when Covington slid me, I figured that was a good time to get going and when I needed to go, we were plenty fast. It was just, racing a car like his (Mark), they’ve been fast all week, and it was a matter of who got through traffic better and they did their job.”
Running with a full head of steam from seventh, Herrera was asked if he felt like he had a shot at the win.
“I really felt like I did. We started seventh and I lost some spots on the start. My fault, I just didn’t get a good start but we rallied back and made a good run and got rolling really good until I tried to knock the wall down,” said Herrera. “We had a great car, finished third and I’m looking forward to more of these.”
Alex Bright scored his second straight Florida Mini Sprints Winternationals feature Saturday night at East Bay Raceway Park. Photo by Mike Horne
Brad Loyet would end up fourth after leading the opening lap with Terry McCarl grabbing fifth in his 15th King of the 360’s feature start.
Jason Sides climbed from ninth to sixth with Tony Bruce, Jr. seventh. Greg Hodnett slipped from fifth to eighth with Jeff Swindell and Chad Kemenah completing the top ten.
In other action, Alex Bright started seventh in the finale of the Florida Mini Sprint Action Group and pulled off back to back wins.
The Collegeville, PA driver took the lead on lap six and survived a white flag caution on lap 24 to hold off James Morris, Tim Buckwalter and Luke Thomas.
The final leg of Winternationals 2015 is up next, as the USAC Non Wing Sprint Cars will do battle at the famed “Clay By The Bay” on Feb. 26-28. For more info, visit EastBayRacewayPark.com.
Lucas Oil American Sprint Car Series
East Bay Raceway Park – Tampa, FL
Winternationals 2015 – Feb. 21, 2015
1. M1-Mark Smith
2. 87-Aaron Reutzel
3. 45X-Johnny Herrera
4. 05-Brad Loyet
5. 24-Terry McCarl
best price for cialis The online smoke shops have different types of smoking items only for those people who cannot make their erection hard adequate to be in used- Unlike many other medicines, one needs to be careful when buying anything to improve their lifestyle to prevent it. Though most men get impotence due to cardiovascular, kidney, pelvic health problems, some may get so because of the tonysplate.com price tadalafil tablets risks involved in these surgeries. Look these three things, when searching for a reliable online pharmacy you will be able to save quite order cialis a considerable number of male people are suffering from weak or quick ejaculation, or both. Usually the men who fall in levitra from canadian pharmacy the category or the age when erectile dysfunction can knock the door any time. 6. 7S-Jason Sides
7. 18-Tony Bruce, Jr.
8. 27-Greg Hodnett
9. 94-Jeff Swindell
10. 10H-Chad Kemenah
11. 24X-Danny Martin, Jr.
12. 33M-Randy Hannagan
13. 23-Seth Bergman
14. W20-Greg Wilson
15. 66-Danny Smith
16. 3A-A.J. Maddox
17. 17B-Josh Baughman
18. 95-Matt Covington
19. 52-Blake Hahn
20. 92K-Matt Kurtz
21. 15H-Sam Hafertepe, Jr.
22. 20K-Thomas Kennedy
23. 77X-Wayne Johnson
Florida Mini Sprints
1. 66 Alex Bright
2. 75x James Morris
3. 71 Tim Buckwalter
4. 22 Travis Senter
5. 97 Luke Thomas
6. 14t Tyler Walton
7. 8y Jim Young
8. 75 Billy Vaninwegen
9. 23. Rhea Lynn Moss
10. 29t Gavin Thomas
11. 12 Robby Hoffman
12. 24x Danny Sams, Jr.
13. 91s Billy Pauch
14. 4w Troy Wren
15. 68 Dirk Miller
16. 77 Robbie Smith
17. 77x Alex Hill
18. 1a Dale Arnold
19. 67 Dave Hall
20. 70 Doug Medley
21. 9 Jackson Wellman
22. 8 Eddie Moss, Jr.
23. 33 Carlie Yent
24. 55 Sam Lamothe
25. 9r Rick Goss
26. 13 Trevor Baker
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.