Joe Gibbs Driven

It wasn't easy for Scarbrough though, the #30 car broke a part of it's rollcage during the early morning practice session resulting in the Aftershock Motorsports team to pack up the car and head down to an associate's shop to have the broken part welded back. The team made it back several hours later just before qualifying.

As the green flag waved the field was lead to the line by #72 Robert Conner who made it onto the pole by inversion as well as eventual winner #30 Joe Scarbrough on the outside pole. Within a laps time, Ronnie Davis, who started 3rd took advantage of Conner getting loose and running high and passed him coming out of turn 1. Doug Paasch and AJ Winstead followed suit and began a three-car fight for the lead.

As the race got going, Paasch made a valiant attempt to take the lead away from Davis several times, getting his orange #2 machine right on Davis’ bumper several times. Fate would have it for Davis however, when his engine suddenly blew resulting in his car slowing down drastically and having Paasch run into the back of the #14 car resulting in the first caution of the event. Paasch inherited the lead and Davis inherited a disappointing 16th place finish.

On the race restart, Paasch held onto the lead, but was being hunted down by the charging cars of Winstead, Scarbrough, and Chris Hoylman. After several laps, the three cars managed to pass the #2 with Winstead leading for the first time this season. All things remained constant until the closing laps of the race when Scarbrough, who had managed to stay within striking distance of Winstead for several laps, finally managed an inside pass on the #99 car as they went into turns 3 and 4. Scarbrough completed the pass just in time for the second caution flag of the night to come out on lap 70 on the account of Gary Wheaton’s #06 machine rolling to a stop on the entrance to the backstretch. Wheaton had been battling an unusual occurrence for several laps as in a strange event, his air filter had flown off his engine and was lodged around his roof panel.

After the push trucks removed Wheaton’s car from the track surface, the green flag waved for a 5-lap shootout for the finish. Scarbrough managed to get a great start and left Winstead, Hoylman, and Brooks vying for the rest of the podium positions. Five laps later, the yellow and blue #30 car grabbed the checkered flag and pumped up an already excited crowd of spectators with a victory burnout and celebratory lap.

The Rolling Thunder Modifieds will take their brand of racing just down the road to Kenly, NC as they compete under the lights at Southern National Raceway Park this Saturday. This event was scheduled on March 31st but was rescheduled due to rain.