Charlie Powell Memorial S.C. 400
Saturday, November 21 the Florence Motor Speedway hosted the Charlie Powell Memorial S.C. 400 with the late models, super late models, and the mighty Modifieds on tap.
When qualifying was finished for the Modifieds Brandon Ward set a new track record turning the 4/10 mile speedway with a time of 16.952. That record only stood until Bobby Labonte, the 2000 Winston Cup Series champion turned a lap of 16.826.
Through the luck of the draw, Jeff Fultz and Gary Putnam brought the 15 car field to the green flag. As the field entered turn one contact between Max McLaughlin, Daniel Yates and Jimmy Wallace created the first of four caution flags. The three cars were eliminated. When racing resumed Jeff Fultz took command of the event until lap five when Labonte, who started sixth wrestled the lead from Fultz. Labonte’s lead lasted only six laps until lap eleven when Burt Meyers, the 2010 and 2016 Nascar Whelen Southern Modified Tour Champion, came impressively to the front from the last row to pace the field until a lap 40 caution for a minor spin by Jeremy Gerstner. At that time the entire field pitted for tires or adjustments.
[Photos] by Crystal Snape
Labonte was the first to return from pitting, followed by Jeff Fultz, Brandon Ward, Tom Buzze, and Jason Meyers for the top five. By lap 47 Ward slid by Labonte easily pulling out to a 3 to 4 car length lead.
While Ward was on a rail making it look easy it was anything but, behind him. Labonte, Fultz, Jason Meyers, and Brian Loftin raced each other hard trying to gain any advantage. Loftin must have saved the best for last. On lap 66 he picked off Fultz for 4th place. On lap 69 he then put Meyers in his rearview mirror and set his sights on Labonte. Three laps later he was in second and had only four laps to catch the race leader Ward.
With one lap to go Loftin tapped Ward’s rear bumper and slid past Ward to lead the final lap. For Loftin and the Shady Grady team, it was their second SMART tour win of 2020. He is the only repeat on the tour this year.
Rounding out the top five were Brandon Ward, Burt Meyers, Bobby Labonte, Jeff Fultz.
“Earlier we were in a wreck, had to go to the back, and had to fight for track position the rest of the race. Everybody was pretty equal on new tires so you had to take your time until they used their stuff up.” Loftin said. “A lot of cat and mouse stuff, so I had enough car at the end. The way the car felt we could have gone another 20 laps easy”. Asked about the last lap. “I really didn’t know if I could get to him, he knew I was coming, he was burning his stuff up coming off the corners. I got to him in turn one and gave him a little shove, he got squirrely, went up the track and it was all over from there”.
Bobby Labonte was happy with his first outing in a modified, he set fast time (a record) led some laps, ran a clean race, and finished 4th. Not a bad day.
Sources: James Snape
Photos by Crystal Snape