Eriez Speedway
Lanigan tops McCreadie at Eriez for sixth victory
By Kevin Kovac
World of Outlaws Late Model Series
Darrell Lanigan led the final seven laps at Eriez Speedway. (Todd Battin)
HAMMETT, Pa. (June 17) — Darrell Lanigan of Union, Ky., maintained his status as top dog on the World of Outlaws Late Model Series, cooling off the resurgent Tim McCreadie of Watertown, N.Y., with a late-race pass for the lead to win Sunday at Eriez Speedway. | Video | Slideshow
Adding to his already commanding WoO points lead, Lanigan, 42, turned up the wick on his Rocket car following a lap-41 restart and sailed by McCreadie on lap 44 to assume command for good. The circuit’s 2008 champion beat McCreadie, the 2006 World of Outlaws titlist, to the finish line by 0.867 of a second for his series-leading sixth victory of the 2012 season.
Defending WoO champ Rick Eckert of York, Pa., placed third, Rookie of the Year leader Bub McCool of Vicksburg, Miss., was fourth in his first-ever start at Eriez and polesitter Chub Frank of Bear Lake, Pa., went too soft with his tire choice and slipped to fifth at the checkered flag to run his WoO winless streak to 99 races.
Lanigan’s $10,650 triumph was his fourth in the last six WoO events and marked the second straight year that he emerged victorious in the national tour’s annual visit to the third-mile Eriez oval. His 32nd career World of Outlaws A-Main win also pushed his ’12 earnings to $128,700 through 17 events — more than double McCreadie’s second-highest total of $63,410.
What’s more, Lanigan grabbed a checkered flag by passing McCreadie late in the distance for the second time in a month, duplicating his winning effort of May 25 at Wayne County Speedway in Orrville, Ohio, and allowing him to remain the hottest seires driver. McCreadie, 38, is vying with Lanigan for that lofty status with six top-five finishes in his last eight starts, including wins on May 4 at 311 Motor Speedway in Pine Hall, N.C., and June 16 at Hagerstown (Md.) Speedway and Sunday evening’s runner-up finish.
“Timmy, he’s running good right now,” said Lanigan, whose perfect Eriez night included setting fast time in Ohlins Shocks Time Trials and winning a heat race. “They got their program working good. He raced me clean tonight and I’d say he’ll be tough all year.”
McCreadie, who started from the outside pole in the Sweeteners Plus Warrior car, led the race’s first lap before being overtaken by Shane Clanton of Fayetteville, N.C. The winner of the $100,000 Dream one week earlier at Ohio’s Eldora Speedway, Clanton built a solid lead until his bid for his first WoO win of ’12 ended abruptly on lap 14 due to terminal engine problems.
Clanton’s departure put McCreadie back in the lead and he seized the opportunity. Lanigan, who started sixth, moved by Frank for second on lap 23 but couldn’t challenge McCreadie, falling over one second in arrears of the leader.
The race’s fourth and final caution flag, on lap 41 for a turn-four spin executed by John Lobb of Frewsburg, N.Y., gave Lanigan new life. He tossed his machine around the outside lane to take the lead from McCreadie on lap 44 and held on for the remaining circuits.
“This was probably a 9 on the difficulty (scale),” said Lanigan, who is within sight of the WoO’s modern-era (2004-present) single-season victory record of nine held by Scott Bloomquist and Josh Richards. “I had to get up on the wheel hard this year. Last year (his first Eriez win) was a little easier.
“T-Mac was running good there on the bottom. I just had to find another groove there on the outside. I finally got enough momentum to get by him.”
McCreadie could taste a second consecutive win, but he settled for a strong bridesmaid finish.
“That darn Darrell — he’s tough,” McCreadie said. “I knew the outside might be good, but I was married to the bottom (lane). Once he showed me (the top) it was better, I moved up and he still kind of got away, so he had the best car.
“Tonight we had a car that I thought was capable of winning, but it’s just that Darrell was a little quicker. But we’re with him. We were off just a little — just a little. We’re getting closer to running with him.”
Eckert, 46, started fourth and never slipped out of the top five in his Bloomquist Race Car. The ’09 WoO winner at Eriez scored his eighth top-five finish of the ’12 tour, second only to Lanigan’s 13.
“We haven’t been very competitive here lately,” Eckert said, “so for us to be able to drive back up to them guys and race with them makes me feel better for sure.”
The fifth-, sixth- and seventh-place finishers — Frank, Boom Briggs of Bear Lake, Pa., and John Volpe of Lakewood, N.Y. — had close ties because all three cars are housed at Frank’s race car shop. Briggs picked up the $500 bonus as highest-finishing driver who has never won a WoO race and isn’t in the top 12 in points, while the 21-year-old Volpe, who began working full time on Frank’s crew last month, advanced from the 13th starting spot to register a career-best WoO finish.
Ron Davies of Warren, Pa., finished a quiet eighth; WoO rookie Jack Sullivan of Greenbrier, Ark., recovered from a turn-four spin that brought out the caution flag on lap nine to finish ninth for his first top-10 run of ’12; and Pat Doar of New Richmond, Wis., completed the top 10.
Mike Knight of Ripley, N.Y., joined Clanton as a high-profile early retiree, pulling up lame with mechanical trouble on lap 38 while running fifth. He briefly climbed as high as third place after starting fifth.
Thirty-six cars were signed in for the event, which was run under a constant threat of rain. As the night’s scheduled race time neared, in fact, it appeared that showers were so close at hand that officials decided to run the three support-division features first in an effort to avoid having rain fall midway through WoO time trials or heat races — a situation that would require the tour’s program to restart from scratch.
The expected heavy rain never struck Eriez, however. A brief shower forced officials to red flag the second consolation race at lap three, but the weather cleared and racing resumed just under an hour later.
Qualifying action was marred by a wild accident during the first heat involving WoO Rookie of the Year contender Kent Robinson of Bloomington, Ind., who was swept up in a multicar lap-three restart tangle that sent him barrel-rolling onto his roof off turn two.
One night after losing an engine as he took the checkered flag to win a heat race at Hagerstown Speedway (he started last in a backup car), Robinson ended up a victim of circumstance at Eriez. Davey Johnson of Latrobe, Pa., was the leader on the restart but got out of shape rounding turns one and two due, he said, to a broken rear end, and the ensuing scramble behind Johnson turned Robinson sideways and then a hit from another car flipped him one-and-a-half times.
Robinson, 25, climbed out of his car after it was righted by track safety crews, dejected but otherwise uninjured after getting upside down for the first time since moving to the Dirt Late Model division in 2010. His car was taken back to the pit area on a rollback truck.
Robinson earned a points provisional, but with his backup car not equipped with an engine he jumped in the Crate Late Model of Rob Bates to take the green flag.
The WoO will remain in the Northeast for the next two weeks, competing on June 22 at Autodrome Granby in Granby, Que.; June 24 at Cornwall (Ont.) Motor Speedway; June 26 at Canandaigua (N.Y.) Speedway; and June 28-30 at Lernerville Speedway (the sixth annual Firecracker 100 presented by GottaRace.com).
WoO @ Ereiz: (1) Darrell Lanigan, (2) Tim McCreadie, (3) Rick Eckert, (4) Bub McCool, (5) Chub Frank, (6) Boom Briggs, (7) John Volpe, (8) Ron Davies, (9) Jack Sullivan, (10) Pat Doar, (11) Dave Hess Jr., (12) Scott Johnson, (13) Jason Dupont, (14) John Lobb, (15) Dave Lyon, (16) Vic Coffey, (17) Mike Knight, (18) Rich Gardner, (19) Scott Gurdak, (20) Andy Boozel, (21) Russ King, (22) Shane Clanton, (23) Clint Smith, (24) Tim Fuller, (25) Kent Robinson. Fast qualifier (among� 36 cars): Lanigan, 15.698 seconds. Heat race winners: Lanigan, Briggs, King, Frank. Consolation winners: Doar, Fuller. Provisional starters: Robinson, Lobb, Gardner.
