Darrell Lanigan (right) sips champagne in victory lane at Cornwall Motor Speedway after beating Clint Smith (left) in Sunday’s World of Outlaws Late Model Series feature. Photo courtesy WoO LMS Media
Stick a maple leaf on Darrell Lanigan’s car and call him the King of Canada.
The defending World of Outlaws Late Model Series champion from Union, KY, completed an undefeated trip north of the border with the national tour on Sunday night, outrunning the resurgent Clint Smith of Senoia, GA, down the stretch to capture the 50-lap A-Main at Cornwall Motor Speedway in Cornwall, Ontario.
“I kind of like coming up here to Canada,” said Lanigan, whose $10,650 triumph backed up his WoO LMS score three days earlier at Brighton (Ont.) Speedway. “We always seem to run well at these tracks up here.”
Lanigan, 43, benefitted from a dose of good fortune to win his series-leading sixth race of 2013. After race-long leader Tim McCreadie of Watertown, NY, had his full straightaway edge over Lanigan wiped out by a lap-28 caution flag, the restart saw McCreadie slow on the homestretch due to a broken driveshaft and spin into the infield – a dramatic turn of events that handed the top spot to Lanigan for good.
The 48-year-old Smith chased Lanigan’s Rocket car for the final 19 laps, drawing within striking distance of the leader with six circuits remaining. But the race’s fifth and final caution flag, on lap 47, cleared lapped traffic from the picture and allowed Lanigan to pull away, leaving Smith to settle for a season-best runner-up finish in his Rocket mount, 1.703 seconds behind the victor.
Bub McCool of Vicksburg, MS, started and finished third in his Victory Circle machine. He slipped back as far as fifth midway through the race before rallying to match his best WoO LMS outing of the season.
DIRTcar big-block Modified star Billy Decker of Unadilla, NY, who started 10th, placed fourth in the Gypsum Racing Rocket, earning his second top-five finish in three WoO LMS starts over the past five days. Shane Clanton of Zebulon, GA, completed the top five with a quiet-but-steady run in the Kennedy Motorsports Capital Race Car.
Lanigan swept the night at the high-banked, quarter-mile oval, setting fast time in Ohlins Shocks Time Trials and winning a heat race prior to grabbing his 47th career WoO LMS A-Main victory. His perfect performance marked his second win in three starts behind the wheel of the new Rocket car he debuted at the start of the tour’s current Northeast swing.
The winningest driver in WoO LMS history pulled off his latest conquest without having to deal with McCreadie, who appeared primed to grab his fourth WoO LMS win of the season after he bolted into the lead from the outside pole at the start of the race. Lanigan didn’t rule out the possibility, however, that he could have challenged McCreadie if the 39-year-old hadn’t met a miserable fate on lap 28.
“I think we were running him down a little because I could see him coming to me,” said Lanigan, who started fourth. “Now whether he had problems then, I don’t know. He might have been having rearend problems then.
“Even if we got there (to McCreadie), it was gonna be hard to pass him. But our car was good, and I’d liked to have raced with him.”
Smith kept Lanigan honest following McCreadie’s departure, but Lanigan never felt any serious pressure.
“I knew Clint was back there, but I knew I had a little bit of a lead there at the end,” said Lanigan. “As long as I ran my own race I was gonna be fine.”
Smith, who started fifth, was a very satisfied runner-up. It was by far his best run of the 2013 WoO LMS campaign; in the 20 events prior to Cornwall, he hadn’t recorded a single top-five finish.
“I’ll be honest with you – the way we’ve been running, it’s like a win,” said Smith, who gained control of second place on lap 31 when his good buddy, Tim Fuller of Watertown, N.Y., slipped over the outside berm between turns one and two while challenging Lanigan and tumbled out of the top five. “I’m trying to stay on tour (with the WoO LMS), and a $5,000 night is a big step for me. That’s like a sponsorship compared to the $1,200 I’ve been getting (for finishing deep in the field). That’s like running five races in a row in one night. It definitely makes a big difference in where we’re going.”
Smith credited his strong run to Lanigan, who provided setup tips that dialed in his familiar No. 44.
“I got back on Darrell’s kind of setup program tonight,” said Smith. “He helped me last year a lot, but this year we’ve been running good around home so I was trying to bring that program out here on the road. It just ain’t good in this part of the country, and I feel like I just lost my way a little bit with setup over the past three or four races.
“I got with Darrell and he helped me get everything back right tonight – so even if I could get to him, I hated to race him hard because he helped me get what I was getting. If he’d have given it to me I’d have took it, but I wasn’t gonna do no slide-jobs or nothing to try and pass him.”
Smith did close in on Lanigan when the leader was in lapped traffic late in the distance, but the lap 47 caution flag effectively dashed his hopes.
“(Lanigan) had destroyed his right-rear tire racing with Fuller early in the race and I still had a good tire, so my car was a little more positive and a little more steady anywhere I wanted to go,” said Smith. “He kind of had to run a dedicated circle and keep his car pulling because he knew his tire was in bad shape, so he couldn’t move around the lapped cars as well as I could. That allowed me to gain on him, but in open track (after the caution) he was still Darrell Lanigan. He was rollin’.”
Finishing in positions 6-10 was WoO LMS rookie Morgan Bagley of Longview, Texas, whose sixth-place run matched his best tour finish of 2013; Chub Frank of Bear Lake, PA, who finished in the same spot he started; Rick Eckert of York, PA; Fuller, who started from the pole position but never led a lap and fell from contention when he lost ground while bidding to overtake Lanigan on lap 31; and points leader Josh Richards of Shinnston, WV, who started eighth and was never a factor at a track where he won WoO LMS A-Mains in 2008 and ’09.
They viagra generic brand make sure that their every patient gets personalized attention so that they feel the importance of mobile alcohol testing. Acai viagra price berry, which is among the Healthiest Organic Supplements, not to mention one of the most potent ones, Organic Acai is getting more and more popular by the hour. This means that your anxiety chest pain, together with Any other thing as there cialis in india price are chances of the drug to be approved for a specific use, it must undergo long and expensive clinical trials in order to be approved for sale by the US Food and Drug Administration as well as world health organization, Kamagra products are supplied in the market. If you are suffering from erectile dysfunction or sildenafil generic from canada hangover symptoms, ginseng rootscan be the best remedy for all of us.
The race’s five caution flags were caused by relatively minor incidents. John Mason of Millersburg, Ohio, and Dan Stone of Thompson, PA, tangled in turn one on the opening lap; Larry Wight of Phoenix, NY, slid off the track between turns three and four on lap three; WoO LMS rookie Eric Wells of Hazard, KY, spun off turn three with a flat right-rear tire on lap 18; McCreadie needed wrecker service after losing the race on lap 28; and Adam Turner of Picton, Ont., spun in turn four on lap 47.
Twenty-six cars were entered in the event, which brought the WoO LMS back to Ron Morin’s Cornwall Motor Speedway for the first time since 2010. There was no race scheduled in 2011 and last year’s event was rained out.
Lanigan’s quick lap of 12.708 seconds in time trials was his third fast-time honor of 2013.
Heat winners were Lanigan, McCreadie and McCool. Stone captured the B-Main after his Leo Milus-owned ‘Super Deuce’ car was sidelined during heat action by a busted distributor.
For more information on the WoO LMS, visit worldofoutlaws.com.
World of Outlaws Late Model Series
Cornwall Motor Speedway – Cornwall, Ontario
Race Results – June 23, 2013
1. (4) Darrell Lanigan/50 $10,650
2. (5) Clint Smith/50 $5,600
3. (3) Bub McCool/50 $3,600
4. (10) Billy Decker/50 $3,000
5. (6) Shane Clanton/50 $2,550
6. (14) Morgan Bagley/50 $2,600
7. (7) Chub Frank/50 $1,950
8. (9) Rick Eckert/50 $1,950
9. (1) Tim Fuller/50 $1,750
10. (8) Josh Richards/50 $1,800
11. (12) Greg Oakes/50 $1,050
12. (15) Eric Wells/50 $1,550
13. (19) Dan Stone/50 $950
14. (23) Larry Wight/50 $950
15. (17) John Mason/50 $850
16. (20) Lee Ladouceur/49 $850
17. (11) Greg Belyea/48 $820
18. (18) Philip Potts/48 $750
19. (21) Adam Turner/48 $730
20. (22) Kyle Sopaz/32 $700
21. (2) Tim McCreadie/28 $1,350
22. (13) Charlie Sandercock/27 $700
23. (24) Jason McCrory/21 $700
24. (16) Gil Tegg Jr./17 $725
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.