Federated Raceway at I-55
Richards gets elbows up, claims I-55 WoO victory
By Kevin Kovac
World of Outlaws Late Model Series
Josh Richards hustles the Rocket house car to victory at I-55. (stlracingphotos.com)
PEVELY, Mo. (Sept. 14) — Josh Richards of Shinnston, W.Va., roared back into the World of Outlaws Late Model Series spotlight with an elbows-up victory in Saturday night’s 55-lap Pevely Nationals at Federated Auto Parts Raceway at I-55. | Slideshow | Video
Twenty-four hours after absorbing a rare DNF, Richards wrestled the lead from Shannon Babb of Moweaqua, Ill., on lap 32 and turned back a late challenge from Darrell Lanigan of Union, Ky., to register his ninth WoO triumph of 2013. The $10,650 score also made him the first driver to win twice in the seven World of Outlaws events contested since 2005 at the high-banked, third-mile oval.
Adding more importance to his checkered flag, Richards, 25, padded his points lead in the chase for the $100,000 WoO championship to a season-high 114 points over Lanigan and Shane Clanton of Zebulon, Ga., who ended the night tied for second in the standings. Richards can clinch his third career title on the national tour by averaging an 11th-place finish over the final five events of the campaign.
“It feels good to have a little bit of a cushion,” Richards said of his healthy edge in the World of Outlaws standings. “We lost it last night (after a broken rearend left him with a 19th-place finish at Belle-Clair Speedway in Belleville, Ill.), so it feels good to come back with a win tonight.”
Lanigan, 43, slipped by Babb for second place on lap 40 and closed up to Richards’s rear bumper with three laps remaining, but the race’s sixth and final caution flag that same circuit effectively snuffed out his bid for a first-ever win at I-55. The defending WoO champion settled for his third career runner-up finish in the Pevely Nationals, crossing the finish line 0.923 of a second behind Richards.
Billy Moyer of Batesville, Ark., who won the inaugural WoO event at I-55 in 2005, advanced from the 10th starting spot to finish third. A pair of DIRTcar UMP standouts – reigning national champion Brian Shirley of Chatham, Ill. and fast-rising 16-year-old Bobby Pierce of Oakwood, Ill. – came from sixth-row starting positions to place fourth and fifth, respectively.
Babb, who started from the pole position and led laps 1-31, finished 15th after bringing out the lap-52 caution flag with a slap of the turn-one wall. He was clinging to fourth place when his car’s nosepiece folded underneath its left-front wheel, causing him to slide uncontrollably into the guardrail and collect Chub Frank of Bear Lake, Pa., and Tyler Reddick of DuQuoin, Ill.
Richards, who started fourth in his father Mark’s familiar Valvoline-sponsored Rocket Chassis house car, needed just four laps to reach second place and pulled off a head-turning outside pass exiting turn four to grab the lead from Babb for good on lap 32. But getting to the front – and staying there – was much harder than it looked to those sitting in the bleachers.
“We got the front end bent up a little bit on the first lap and it was definitely a handful to drive,” said Richards, who survived an opening-circuit scrape in turn three that left Clanton with a broken right-front suspension and a dismal 26th-place finish might have destroyed his flickering WoO championship hopes. “I couldn’t really steer as good as I wanted to the rest of the race.”
Richards’s handling woes left him unable to “steer good enough to run that (outside) groove lap after lap,” but he managed to manhandle his machine around the fast-but-treacherous top side in short bursts to surge into the lead and repel Lanigan’s late threat.
After WoO rookie Morgan Bagley of Longview, Texas, brought out a caution flag on lap 48 when a flat left-rear tire forced him to relinquish a top-10 spot, Lanigan tossed his Rocket car around the cushion and drew within striking distance of Richards by lap 52. It appeared Lanigan was primed to charge by Richards, but the lap-52 caution flag was the break the leader needed.
“I guess (before) that last restart Darrell went back to the top and got a run on me,” said Richards, who registered his 48th career victory on the WoO tour. “I heard him out there and my guys were saying to move back up. As leery as I felt up there, I knew you just had to get up there and deal with it for a few more laps.
“Once I got up there and kept the speed up I knew we’d be O.K., but our car was just so tight that you just can’t steer on the throttle very well here. Those last few laps sure seemed like they took a long time to run.”
Lanigan had to resign himself to a second-place finish – a bounce-back for him as well following a 17th-place run the previous night at Belle-Clair that was caused by a late-race flat.
“We had a pretty good run going there on the top and closed in on (Richards) hard,” said Lanigan, who leads the series with 10 wins this season. “But then we had that caution and his crew told him where to run – to go to the top. That’s what you’re supposed to do.”
Finishing in positions 6-10 was Rick Eckert of York, Pa., who quietly worked his way forward from the 17th starting spot; Billy Moyer Jr. of Batesville, Ark., who started alongside his father in the fifth row; third-starter Dennis Erb Jr. of Carpentersville, Ill., who won last year’s Pevely Nationals; Tim Fuller of Watertown, N.Y.; and Bagley, who rallied after pitting on lap 48.
Brandon Sheppard of New Berlin, Ill., who the previous night at Belle-Clair, cracked the top five late in the distance and had just inherited fourth place thanks to Babb’s problem on lap 52 when a flat tire forced him to pit. He finished 13th.
Notes: Richards drives the Roush Yates-powered Rocket Chassis house car sponsored by Valvoline, Seubert Calf Ranches and Ernie D’s Enterprises. ... Richards’ 48 career WoO victories is second to only Lanigan (51) on the tour’s all-time wins list. ... Tim Manville, Tanner English and Brian Diveley were among notable entries not making the main event.... World of Outlaws competitors will be back in action next weekend at Berlin Raceway in Marne, Mich., a 7/16-mile asphalt track that has been covered with clay for the second annual Keyser Manufacturing Down & Dirty 100 Presented by NAPA Auto Parts. Time trials and heat races will be contested on Sept. 20 and consolation races and the $20,000-to-win 100-lapper will be run Sept. 21
WoO @ I-55: (1) Josh Richards, (2) Darrell Lanigan, (3) Billy Moyer, (4) Brian Shirley, (5) Bobby Pierce, (6) Rick Eckert, (7) Billy Moyer Jr., (8) Dennis Erb Jr., (9) Tim Fuller, (10) Morgan Bagley, (11) Eric Wells, (12) Bub McCool, (13) Brandon Sheppard, (14) Chub Frank, (15) Randy Korte, (16) Shannon Babb, (17) Tyler Redick, (18) Dewayne Kiefer, (19) Jason Feger, (20) Jason McBride, (21) Jim Shereck, (22) Tim McCreadie, (23) Michael Kloos, (24) Jeff Herzog, (25) Rickey Frankel, (26) Shane Clanton. Fast qualifier (among 33 cars): Richards, 12.194 seconds. Heat race winners: Richards, McCool, Bagley, Clanton. Consolation winners: Eckert, Shereck. Provisional starters: Wells, Feger, Kiefer, Herzog.
