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Turner Turns Up The Heat at Nashville

NASHVILLE, TN--Last year, Ricky Turner and Ronnie Sanders battled down to the wire for the Southern All Star Championship. Turner led Sanders by 24 points headed into the world Classic 200 at Mobile, and won the championship by a mere 10 points. This season, it appears the defending champion wants to take a different route to the title. Tuesday night at Nashville Speedway USA, Turner won the Nippert & Nippert Firecracker 150, while his closest competitor in the points race, again Sanders, struggled to a 15th place finish. David Hole, third in points, placed ninth in the Nashville race, and moved into a tie for second with Sanders, 90 points behind Turner.

For the fifth time this season, Wayne Willard led the way in UpFront Carburetion Pole Qualifying. Willard's time of 18.172 bested 25 other Late Models.

Willard rolled a five on the inversion die, putting Turner on the pole. Turner's first lead of the night was short as Dan Beddingfield took the lead away on the third circuit. Willard was quick to show his pole speed was no fluke, as he charged from his fifth starting spot to the lead by lap nine.

It appeared early on that Willard might turn in another dominating performance as he moved out to comfortable five car-length lead a third of the way through the race. Turner was second, followed by Hole, Beddingfield, and Gary Helton. Three top competitors, Sanders, Jason Hogan, and John Wilkinson III were in the pits. Hogan and Wilkinson were done for the night, with Sanders returning 22 laps down.

At the halfway point, Willard still held his comfortable lead. Beddingfield had moved past Hole and Turner into second. The caution flew two laps past, bringing most of the leaders to the pits. Turner's crew did its job, getting the defending champion out first. Tony Walls took over the lead on the track with Darrell Brown and Doug Reed III in tow. Turner was fourth on the restart.

Walls led the field to the restart on lap 84, but Turner was fast on his new Hoosiers, taking the point on lap 91. Willard followed as Walls' old tires began to show their age. Before Walls could pit on lap 108, he had fallen to eighth place in the running order.

Turner was able to set his place and maintained a 4 car-length lead over Willard as the race headed to its conclusion. Beddingfield had one of the faster cars on the track, making his way from fifth to third and running Willard down. A caution on lap 135 set up a ten-lap shootout.

Twice yellow flags interrupted the ten-lap sprint. The first was brought out when Beddingfield spun trying to wrestle second away from Willard. A few laps later, Beddingfield got into the back of Johnny Henderson, sending Henderson around and setting up a green, white, checker finish.

Turner got a good jump on the restart and out ran Willard to the checkered flag to pick up his second win of the year. Walls moved back through the pack to finish third, followed by Tim Fryar and Helton. Sixth through tenth went to Johnny Brazier, Beddingfield, Brown, Hole, and Henderson.

The series moves to Peach State Speedway for a 200-lap event, Wednesday, July 18th. For more information, contact the series at (256) 539-4484 or visit the series web site at www.southern-allstars.com/

Results

1. Ricky Turner
2. Wayne Willard
3. Tony Walls
4. Tim Fryar
5. Gary Helton
6. Johnny Brazier
7. Dan Beddingfield
8. Darrell Brown
9. David Hole
10. Johnny Henderson
11. Doug Reid III
12. Mark Shultz
13. J.R. Dudley
14. John Henagar Jr
15. Ronnie Sanders
16. Dave Mader III
17. J.R. Norris
18. Matt McCall
19. Ken McFarland
20. Fred Ford
21. Jackie McGuire
22. Jason Hogan
23. Bill Little
24. John Wilkinson III
25. Heath Hindman
26. Marc Burleson

DNS Terry Mason Jr