Duck River Raceway Park
McDowell's in the house (car), wins Duck River
By Robert Holman
DirtonDirt.com correspondent
McDowell (G1) overtakes Clanton (25) on lap 20. (Robert Holman)
WHEEL, Tenn. (Sept. 20) — Dale McDowell is still perfect in the Warrior House Car. Saturday the Rossville, Ga., driver claimed his second straight victory since jumping behind the wheel of Sanford Goddard’s pet project. McDowell, who lately has become a hired gun of sorts, took the lead from polesitter Shane Clanton, of Locust Grove, Ga., on lap 20 and stayed out front the rest of the way to win the $10,000 Southern Regional Racing Series-sanctioned Pepe Le Pugh 75 at Duck River Speedway. | Postrace notebook | Michael aims for second SRRS title | Feature slideshow | Duck River prelims
Clanton held on to second ahead of Randy Weaver of Crossville, Tenn., who just edged ninth-starting Wendell Wallace of Batesville, Ark., for third. Fourteenth-starting Byron Michael, the defending series champion and current points of Florence, Ala., finished fifth.
McDowell first drove the Warrior House Car a week ago, when he had a successful outing by winning a weekly show at Cleveland (Tenn.) Speedway. He said after two straight wins, he may stay in the seat a little longer this season.
“I’ve been doing a lot of development stuff for different people and I’ve been doing stuff with the (driving) schools, stuff like that,” said McDowell. “They wanted to race and I didn’t have anything going on, so we decided to come over here. We went to Cleveland last week, just so I could check things out and get a feel for the car. We plan on running a few more races this year.”
After two days at Duck River, the 42-year-old McDowell certainly looked like he had a feel for it. McDowell started from inside the second row and quickly took the second spot away from Murfreesboro, Tenn.’s, Tony Morris. By lap 15 McDowell was closing on race leader Clanton. Clanton’s five-length advantage disappeared, but he used a lap car to hold onto the lead briefly. Once McDowell cleared the lapped traffic he once again began to pressure the leader.
Five laps later it was McDowell who used a lapped car as a pick. The duo split the back marker of Corey Posey, and raced side-by-side for a lap before McDowell cleared Clanton and began to pull away. By lap 25 he had built a five length lead, an advantage that fluctuated only because of two cautions midway through the race and lapped traffic late in the race. Once in front, McDowell was never threatened.
“I think we were really pretty equal at the beginning,” McDowell said. “I knew that the lapped traffic would play a part. (The crew) was giving me signals that I had some room, so I could slow down and work through the traffic easier. That’s the thing with lapped traffic, you have to catch the lapped cars at the right time.”
Notes: McDowell’s Warrior Race Car is sponsored by Goddard Performance Parts, Curtis Equipment Sale, Christenberry Trucking and Farm and Goddard Industrial. … The win was McDowell’s second with the series this season. The first came at Crossville (Tenn.) Raceway on April 25. McDowell was piloting the Joe Armes No. 77 GRT Race Car that night. … Clint Smith broke a shock pin early in the race, pitted to fix it and returned to the tail of the field on lap two before rallying to a sixth-place finish. … After a rough surface on Friday night, drivers were greeted by a smooth, racy track for Saturday’s action. … Randy Gifford survived a post-race inspection to win the companion Crate/two-barrel Late Model feature. … Byron Michael’s top-five finish allowed him to increase his points lead over Brandon King, who ran in the middle of the pack for most of the race. … There are three SRRS races remaining, the next Oct. 10 at Boyd’s Speedway in Ringgold, Ga., paying $3,000 to win.
SRRS @ Duck River Speedway: (1) Dale McDowell, (2) Shane Clanton, (3) Randy Weaver, (4) Wendell Wallace, (5) Byron Michael, (6) Clint Smith, (7) Tony Morris, (8) Bub McCool, (9) Ronny Lee Hollingsworth, (10) Jay Brinkley, (11) Brandon Kinzer, (12) Brandon King, (13) Tony Knowles, (14) Daniel Miller, (15) Jimmy Tucker, (16) Eric Hickerson, (17) Kelly Hanvey, (18) Jack Sullivan, (19) Anthony Burroughs, (20) Corey Posey, (21) Steven Ashby, (22) Michael Luna, (23) Chris Wall, (24) Mark Fields. Fast qualifier (among 47 cars): Clanton 12.734 seconds. Heat race winners: Clanton, Morris, McDowell, Weaver.
