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Budweiser Night presented by Virginia Deer Hunters Association

CAPRON, Va. (Aug. 3) — Facing a challenge from Doug Godsey for his top spot in the NASCAR Weekly Racing Series Atlantic Seaboard Region standings, Brandon Butler of Richmond, Va., responded with a dominating run and posted his fourth victory of the year in the Budweiser 100 for the RaceWorld.com Late Model Stock Cars, part of Friday’s Bud Night program presented by the Virginia Deer Hunters Association at Southampton Motor Speedway.

Butler claimed the pole for the event with a 96.051-mph qualifying effort. He shared the front row with Frank Deiny Jr. of Mechanicsville, Va., a two-time SMS winner in ‘01 and the points leader at Orange County Speedway. Richmond’s Godsey, gunning for his fourth straight victory, lined up third.

The race got off to a rocky start as Max Smith of Roanoke Rapids, N.C., and Bob Shreeves of Chesapeake, Va., got crossed up on the frontstretch as the green flag waved. Ray Hackett of La Plata, Md., was collected in the melee and the field immediately went under caution.

After a red-flag stint for cleanup, the field regrouped for another attempt at getting the race under way.

When the green flag flew again, Butler vaulted into the lead, leaving Godsey to battle door-to-door with Deiny for second place. Godsey grabbed the position on lap 2 as Deiny settled into third, followed by Jason Rudd of Suffolk, Va., and Wayne Grubb of Richmond.

By lap 10, Butler had pulled away by more than four car-lengths as Godsey was obviously struggling. On the 12th circuit, Godsey skated high off Turn 2 and nearly collected the outside wall.

Deiny made the move into second on lap 17, diving under Godsey on the backstretch and taking the spot into Turn 3. Rudd tagged along on Deiny’s bumper and assumed third place as the leaders rumbled off Turn 4. The shuffle allowed Butler to extend his lead to better than half a straightaway.

Butler’s advantage remained stable at about half a straightaway until lap 60 when the second and final yellow flag appeared. The incident was a close call for Butler as two cars, scrambling to stay on the lead lap, spun just ahead of him in Turn 2. Butler dodged through the accident scene, though, and maintained the lead as the field bunched up for the restart.

Back under green, Butler began to ease away from the pack. Meanwhile, Grubb went to work on Godsey for fourth place, eventually snagging the position on lap 69.

At the head of the field, Butler was on cruise control. By lap 80, he had regained his half-straightaway margin and was well on his way to Victory Lane.

The battle for second began to heat up in the closing circuits as Rudd zeroed in on Deiny. On lap 89, Rudd drove under Deiny in Turn 4 and the two raced door-to-door for a lap before Rudd gained the upper hand through Turns 3 and 4 on lap 90.

As the race entered its last five laps, Butler ran up on a pack of four slower cars, two of which were still hanging onto the lead lap. Working carefully, he sorted his way past the group, breaking into the clear on lap 99.

At the finish, Butler was the winner by 1.631 seconds — about six car-lengths. Rudd was second, followed by Deiny, Grubb and Godsey, who salvaged a top-five finish.

Following the race, Butler revealed that his team had put in a little extra work to prepare for the event: “We hadn’t been too bad the last few weeks, but we hadn’t been able to pull off a win. We came out here and tested yesterday, changed a lot of things and thought it was pretty good and it was mighty good tonight. We’ve been tight the last few weeks and it was kinda’ on the free side tonight, but I think everybody was. We’ll take it.”

The victory marked a good start to Butler’s crowded weekend schedule: “We’ve got a busy weekend. We’re racing tomorrow night in Manassas (Old Dominion Speedway) and Sunday in South Boston, so we needed to bring this thing home in one piece.”

For his part, Rudd seemed a bit frustrated by his second straight runner-up showing at SMS: “We didn’t have the best car tonight. Brandon had us all beat. We didn’t have quite the car we had last time we ran here. It was tight. It ran all right. Two seconds in a row, I don’t know, I don’t like finishing back here, but I guess we’ll have to go change something around on it, get it to go a little bit better.”

Meanwhile, third-place Deiny had a strategy in mind, but it didn’t quite work out: “My car started fading about 50 laps in. I was just trying to hold him (Rudd) off as long as I could, hoping that, maybe, some of this lapped traffic would slow Brandon down enough to where we could get that Creative Services Monte Carlo to the front, but it didn’t happen.”

In the division standings, Butler added eight points to his advantage over Godsey and leads by 12 — 594-582.

   LATE MODEL STOCK CARS - 100 laps

1.  Brandon Butler - Richmond, Va., 100
2.  Jason Rudd - Suffolk, Va., 100
3.  Frank Deiny Jr. - Mechanicsville, Va., 100
4.  Wayne Grubb - Richmond, Va., 100
5.  Doug Godsey - Richmond, Va., 100
6.  Bud Kenny - Virginia Beach, Va., 100
7.  Mike Shearin - Emporia, Va., 100
8.  Terry Allison - South Mills, N.C., 100
9.  Denny Hamlin - Chesterfield, Va., 99
10. Jim Williams - Chesapeake, Va., 99
11. Buck Godsey - Richmond, Va., 98
12. Duane Shreeves - Chesapeake, Va., 98
13. Mike Queen - Chesapeake, Va., 98
14. Mike Conner - Gloucester, Va., 98
15. Andy Bell - Norfolk, Va., 84
16. Bob Shreeves - Chesapeake, Va., 0
17. Max Smith - Roanoke Rapids, N.C., 0
18. Ray Hackett - La Plata, Md., 0
• Pole: Butler - 96.051 mph.
• Hard Luck Award: Shreeves.
• Hard Charger Award: Rudd.