Farmer City Raceway
Notes: Zeigler rubs Moyer wrong at Farmer City
Mason Zeigler (25z) and Billy Moyer (21) mix it up. (Jim Jones)
FARMER CITY, Ill. (May 11) — While Shannon Babb was mostly cruising out front in Thursday evening’s Farmer City 74 opener, the battle for second place between Mason Zeigler and Billy Moyer got a bit heated.
Zeigler and Moyer mixed it up in the 35-lapper, trading paint and swapping the second spot a few times while Babb edged away for the $3,000 victory in a MARS DIRTcar Series-sanctioned prelim for Friday’s $20,000-to-win main event at the quarter-mile oval. | RaceWire
The feathers of Moyer, Farmer City's three-time Illini 100 winner from Batesville, Ark., were a bit ruffled by the battle with Zeigler, the Chalk Hill, Pa., driver who slid across Moyer’s nose in turn one after a mid-race restart.
Moyer chose his words carefully in a postrace interview, but didn’t hide his opinion about why he believed he finished third instead of second.
“Whatever happened on that last (restart), I don’t know,” Moyer said. “(Zeigler) just (went) in there and ran over me. That’s plain to see. He knocked the fender clear off of it. You know, it ain’t for a whole lot of money tonight anyway. We’re just trying to feel our car out. He ran in there over his head.”
Zeigler, who started third but got a quick start to lead the first four laps, wanted to make it clear that he didn’t intend to make contact with the Hall of Famer.
“Moyer and us got into it a little bit there at the end. Nothing was intentional. We were just bouncing through the holes that one time, and … he pushed whenever he hit that hole, and I apparently got into his spill panel a little bit there,” Zeigler said. “Then we crossed over going for second coming into (turn) one and got together there. It wasn’t intentional. I hate it for him if he has hard feelings. It’s racing. But like I said, it wasn’t intentional.”
Zeigler’s runner-up finish was the best in four career feature starts at Farmer City. He finished 20th and 22nd during 2016’s Illini 100 weekend on the World of Outlaws Craftsman Late Model Series, and posted a fifth-place finish in 2015’s UMP DIRTcar Summernationals feature after starting on the front row.
Babb takes high road
While most drivers took the shorter way around Farmer City early in Thursday’s 35-lapper, winner Shannon Babb was happy to take the high road. The 43-year-old Moweaqua, Ill., driver who grew up racing at Farmer City blasted around the top groove and into the lead he’d never give up by the fifth lap.
“We’ve got a lot of laps around here, and the track was good tonight,” said Babb, who scored his first victory of 2017 in his sixth start. “They’ve had a lot of rain and they did a good job having it sealed up early. It stayed smooth and provided everybody with a lot of different lanes. At the very beginning of that race, they opened the door and I was able to capitalize and get around them.”
Babb turned back a challenge from Billy Moyer on a restart, but perhaps his biggest scare came early in the race when he nearly slid off the backstretch, always a possibility at the track without walls. Fortunately he regained the handle and kept the field in check while edging a bit lower on the racetrack.
“As the laps went by, we were on soft tires tonight — everybody was — and the right-rear (tire) kind of got hot and the left rear started driving a little bit too much,” Babb said. “I got out of my line a little bit and got over the back, and just kind of did a little middle-of-the-race stunt there and jumped back in and kept ‘er going.
“It’s easy to do at this place. The lights are in your eyes and it’s a thin line there. I knew after that long caution that I needed to get out of that situation and start running that middle-to-the-bottom. It was good and it’s a lot shorter.”
Zeigler’s new ride
Runner-up Mason Zeigler made his fourth appearance in new XR1 model Rocket Chassis at Farmer City, and he likes what he’s feeling in his new race car after making one start in his home state of Pennsylvania and a few World of Outlaws appearances in the Carolinas.
“The first night out (at Roaring Knob Motorsports Complex) was real good in it. We should’ve won. We ended up breaking a shock eye, which is weird. We probably would’ve won that for sure the first night out.
“Then we went down to Gaffney and Fayetteville. Our features finishes weren’t as good (19th and 17th) as what we would’ve liked, but we showed speed, and that’s what we were looking for, and we’re just sort of dialing it in now and I think we’re going to have a good piece.”
Zeigler wasn’t the only one in a relatively new ride at Farmer City.
Billy Drake of Bloomington, Ill., won a heat and finished ninth in his second appearance behind the wheel of Ray Neltner's new MB Customs car, built at the shop of fourth-place finisher Jimmy Mars.
And one week after dropping off the World of Outlaws tour, Chase Junghans of Manhattan, Kan., finished 10th in a new XR1 Rocket Chassis his team finished up this week a Rocket's Shinnston, W.Va., shop. Junghans had spent recent seasons driving a Capital Race Car.
Odds and ends
Thursday’s third-place finisher Billy Moyer has had most of his success in slicker track conditions at Farmer City, something he’d like to see Friday. “Hopefully it’ll be back to the regular Farmer City tomorrow night and get them bumps out of there and stuff, and I think we should be OK,” he said. … Among drivers that didn’t compete Thursday who are expected to race for Friday’s $20,000-to-win purse are Clint Bowyer Racing drivers Don O’Neal of Martinsville, Ind., and Darrell Lanigan of Union, Ky., along with O’Neal’s son Hudson and Gregg Satterlee of Indiana, Pa. … Dennis Erb Jr. of Carpentersville, Ill., was a late arrival because of a flat tire on his hauler. He finished seventh in the main event.
