Tri-City Raceway Park
Francis stretches points lead at Tri-City opener
By Kevin Kovac
World of Outlaws Late Model Series
FRANKLIN, Pa. (Sept. 1) — Steve Francis padded his World of Outlaws Late Model Series points lead over Chub Frank thanks to some assistance from Frank himself. Yes, Francis credited Frank with helping him win the 50-lap opener of the Oil Region Labor Day Classic weekend at Tri-City Speedway.
“We kinda had the ‘Chub’ setup in it tonight,” Francis said with a smile after his second WoO victory of 2007. “There’s a couple things that Chub does a little different to his cars. Tonight we tried the same stuff with our car, and it worked.
“Chub says everybody looks at him and says he’s dumb for doing some of the stuff he does, but it ain’t long before we’re all doing it.”
Francis, 39, of Ashland, Ky., drove by Bear Lake, Pa.’s Frank on his way to the front from the eighth starting spot, passing his prime championship rival for second place on lap 14. He then used the inside groove to overtake Shane Clanton of Locust Grove, Ga., for the lead on lap 20 and never looked back.
Frank finished a distant second, 2.419 seconds behind Francis in a race that ran non-stop after a lone caution flag negated the original start. He never got close enough to challenge Francis.
Tim Fuller of Watertown, N.Y., who leads the WoO Rookie of the Year chase, finished a straightaway behind Frank in third place. The polesitting Clanton settled for fourth after leading laps 12-19, and Rob Blair of Titusville, Pa., who started second and led laps 1-11, was fifth.
The night belonged to Francis, who registered his first-ever win at the half-mile Tri-City oval.
“The car was just so maneuverable,” said Francis, who earned $10,225 for his 12th career WoO triumph. “We could run up-and-down the track."
Frank, 45, was in full agreement with Francis.
“I don’t think that speedwise he was any faster, but his car was more maneuverable than mine,” said the fourth-starting Frank, who leads the WoO with five wins this season. “When we got to running, he could maneuver around traffic a lot better than I could.
“He could stick it right in there. I was just racing with somebody (early in the race) and slid up a little bit, and he got by me on the bottom.”
Despite his clear superiority, Francis didn’t rest easy in the race’s closing stages. He was constantly thinking about Frank, a bulldog in Nomex.
”The worst thing was, I didn’t know where Chub was,” Francis said of the final laps. “I know how Chub is — he’s never gonna quit — and that’s why I was running the lapped cars so hard at the end. I didn’t know how big a lead I had.
“With a few laps to go I came up on two or three cars racing together and I knew they were gonna slow me down, so I was waiting for Chub to do some big banzai move on the last lap. Chub’s notorious for that — he’s gonna race every lap like it’s his last one.”
Notebook
Francis drives a Rocket Chassis with a Custom Racing Engine and sponsorship from Valvoline, VP Racing Fuels and Brittchar Trucking. ... Francis broke a 45-race losing streak with his June 23 victory at Quebec’s Autodrome Drummond and went another 10 races without a victory before breaking through at Tri-City. ... The race’s lone caution flag, on the opening lap, was for Jeremy Miller, whose car stopped with electrical problems. ... The event was completed by 9 p.m.
