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Huffman Pulls Off 'Spin and Win' at Lonesome Pine

COEBURN, Va. - Driver Shane Huffman took a page out of the Indianapolis 500 history books here Saturday night, by recreating Danny Sullivan's infamous 1985 "spin and win" in the Food City 250, presented by Johnsonville Sausage, held at Lonesome Pine Raceway. The victory is the third of the 2001 season for the XTRA Motorsports "Brat Bunch," and moves the Hickory, N.C. driver into a tie with Bobby Gill for most wins in the USAR Hooters ProCup Series South Division.

Shane Huffman

The lap 79 spin turned out to be a blessing in disguise for Huffman, who took advantage of the subsequent caution period to pit for tires, as the yellow flag would not wave again until lap 219. For the other leaders, that would leave little time for them to make use of their fresh rubber. "That's sure not how we planned it," said crew chief Ronnie White. "We wanted to get closer to the halfway mark before we pitted, like I'm sure everyone else did."

"Getting turned around on that restart was just a racing deal," admitted Huffman. "A couple of cars behind us got together and pushed up into us." Regarding the long period of green flag racing that followed, Huffman was hesitant to call it "luck". "We didn't just back into this thing. We qualified 13th and were running in the top five when we spun," continued Huffman. "At the end, (Jeff Agnew and Hal Goodson) had 140 lap newer tires than we did and they had a shot with that green/white/checkers finish. I still think the best car won tonight."

With the laps winding down, and Agnew and Goodson racing each other for second, it looked as if the Huffman had win number three in the bag when, with two laps to go, the yellow flag flew for a spin involving the lapped car of Dell Murphy. "We definitely didn't want to see that caution with two to go," said White, "but they had been shootin' bullets at us all night and we had dodged all of 'em. I guess we had one dodge left in us."

Huffman's win propels him to third in USAR South Division points, 23 behind second place Bobby Gill and 55 off of leader Hal Goodson. The Johnsonville "Brat Bunch" will be back in action July 7, when the Hooters ProCup Series visits Montgomery Motor Speedway for race number ten on the USAR South Division schedule.

--Huffman PR