ADAMS FROM NINTH TO FIRST IN CHAMPIONSHIP RACE
October 2, 2005
BATESBURG, SC - Kenny Adams of Malabar, FL drove his Milk Movers, 
Inc./Goodson Farms Shaw/Ott from the ninth starting position to win the O'Reilly United Sprint Car Series 33-lap Carolina Thunder Tour Championship Race Saturday night at I-20 Speedway. Adams passed early race leader Chad Allum of Kannapolis, NC on lap 27 to post his 16th win of the season.
With his 91st O'Reilly USCS career win, Adams also picked up the 2005 Championship.
The route to victory in the two-day show was a long one for Adams. On Friday night, Adams was not allowed to qualify because of an infraction during hot laps, which relegated him to the last starting spot in the second heat race. Adams came from eighth to win the ButlerBuilt second ten-lap heat race.
Adams' point total from the combination of time trials and heat racing left him with the fifth starting spot in the B-Main, and he finished third in the ten-lap race. That gave Adams the ninth starting spot for the main event. The run from ninth to first earned Adams the Huggins Cams Hard Charger Award.
Allum had to settle for the second spot in the main event to top off a successful evening behind the wheel of the ButlerBuilt Prowler/Chrisco.
Allum was the winner of the Koolbeans Trophy Dash Championship Race and picked up $1,000 in cash and prizes. Allum also won the ten-lap B-Main, and with the top eight starters for the big show inverted, he started on the outside of the front row. Allum led the first 26 laps of the feature race to take the Outlaw Racing Disc Brakes Fast Brake of the Race Award.
Johnny Bridges of Cherryville, NC drove his Ford-powered C&B Mushrooms/Stainless Fabricators J&J/Bridges from the eighth starting spot to a third-place finish. Bridges set a new all-time I-20 Speedway track record on Friday night during the C&B Mushrooms Qualifications. Bridges toured the ½-mile clay oval in 14.018 seconds for an average speed of 128.406 miles per hour.
Matt Tiffany of Daytona Beach, FL finished fourth in the Independent Printing Shaw/Ott. The 16-year-old driver was the SpeedMart Young Gun of the Race, and the Robison Racing Products Rookie of the Race.
Danny Martin Jr. of Sarasota, FL took the fifth spot in the Martin Structures, Inc./Food Grade Transport Schnee/ZRE, and Brice Wrenn of Lexington, SC was sixth in the Stainless Fabricators Maxim/Gaerte. The defending and four-time O'Reilly USCS National Champion Terry Gray of Bartlett, TN finished seventh in the C&B Mushrooms/Goodson Farms Maxim/Wesmar.
Bryn Gohn of Malabar, FL drove the Milk Movers, Inc./Goodson Farms Shaw/Ott to an eighth-place finish, and R.J. Johnson of Decatur, TN took the ninth spot in the Tinsley Engineering/Georgia Performance Graphics J&J/ZRE. Stephen Darvalics of Venice, FL rounded out the top ten in the CineMoves Shaw/Gaerte.
Allum took the lead at the start of the race from his outside front row starting spot followed by K&N Filters Pole Award winner Bruce Cline of Apex, NC in the 31-W Insulation Stealth/Engler, Tiffany, Josh Weller of Mertztown, PA in the Wave Tech Associates J&J/Ott, and Wrenn. Tiffany passed Cline for the second spot on lap two, and Bridges came from the eighth starting spot to pass Wrenn for fifth on lap four.
The first caution flag came out on lap five when Brandon McClain hit the second turn wall and spun the Carolina Concrete/McClain Trucking Maxim/McClain. Allum led Tiffany, Cline, Weller, Bridges, Wrenn, Martin, Gray, Adams, and Ashley Parlett of Concord, NC in the Schaeffer & Strohminger Dealers J&J/Ott down for the restart.
Lap seven saw Weller pass Cline for the third spot in turn one, and Bridges got around Cline for the fourth position on lap eight. Adams moved into the top five on lap ten, dropping Cline back to the sixth spot. Bridges moved up to challenge Weller for third on lap 12, and made the pass for the position in turn three.
Tiffany closed up on Allum in heavy lapped traffic on lap 16 to challenge for the lead. Just as Tiffany made a move to take the lead, the caution light came on. Weller, Cline, and Dennis Lykins Jr. of Thomaston, GA in the Alcan Packaging Pro Lite/June Bug tangled in turn four. The red flag was displayed while the track safety crew worked at the crash site.
All three cars were done for the evening, and that proved to be costly, especially for Cline. When the points were tabulated, Cline lost the third spot, and the Rookie of the Year title in the to Gohn by one point. That earned Cline the Weld Racing Hard Luck Award.
When the field went green to begin lap 18, Adams got busy from the fourth position. The "Malabar Missile" got around Bridges for the third spot down the backstretch on lap 19, and then drove under Tiffany for the second spot down the front straightaway on lap 21. Adams then caught Allum by lap 26, and made the pass for the lead by diving under Allum in turn three on lap 27.
Martin moved up to challenge Bridges for the fourth spot on lap 29, but Bridges pulled away and passed Tiffany for the third position with two laps to go.
In other preliminary action, Weller won the six-lap Air Flow Research Power Dash, and on Friday night, Wrenn won the Engler Machine and Tool first ten-lap heat race, and Adams won the ButlerBuilt second ten-lap heat race.
Also on Friday night, Mike Senecal of Palmetto, FL won the Koolbeans Trophy Dash Qualifying Race in the Rodeway Inn Maxim/Humphrey. Senecal was leading the second heat, when he had a mechanical failure, and had to scratch from the event.
The O'Reilly USCS returns to the pavement for its next two events. The O'Reilly USCS Asphalt Thunder Tour will be at Five Flags Speedway in Pensacola, FL on Friday night, October 7, and at Mobile International Speedway in Mobile, AL on Saturday night, October 8.
OFFICIAL RESULTS OF ROUND 42 PRELIMINARY EVENTS AT I-20 SPEEDWAY IN BATESBURG, SC ON 9/30/05:
| POS |
STRT |
CAR# |
DRIVER |
HOMETOWN |
LAPS |
| 1. |
9 |
4a |
Kenny Adams |
Malabar, FL |
33 |
| 2. |
2 |
87 |
Chad Allum |
Kannapolis, NC |
33 |
| 3. |
8 |
07 |
Johnny Bridges |
Cherryville, NC |
33 |
| 4. |
3 |
19t |
Matt Tiffany (R) |
Daytona Beach, FL |
33 |
| 5. |
6 |
00 |
Danny Martin Jr. |
Sarasota, FL |
33 |
| 6. |
5 |
1w |
Brice Wrenn |
Lexington, SC |
33 |
| 7. |
7 |
10 |
Terry Gray |
Bartlett, TN |
33 |
| 8. |
10 |
4b |
Bryn Gohn (R) |
Malabar, FL |
33 |
| 9. |
11 |
71 |
R.J. Johnson |
Decatur, TN |
33 |
| 10. |
13 |
32 |
Stephen Darvalics (R) |
Venice, FL |
33 |
| 11. |
14 |
17n |
Jamie Neaves |
Daytona Beach, FL |
32 |
| 12. |
15 |
6x |
David Thorman |
Greenville, SC |
30 |
| 13. |
12 |
5a |
Ashley Parlett |
Concord, NC |
29 |
| 14. |
4 |
63 |
Josh Weller |
Mertztown, PA |
17 |
| 15. |
1 |
1c |
Bruce Cline |
Apex, NC |
17 |
| 16. |
18 |
85 |
Dennis Lykins Jr. |
Thomaston, GA |
17 |
| 17. |
16 |
21 |
Brandon McClain |
Indian Trail, NC |
4 |
| 18. |
17 |
6 |
Skeeter Faulconer |
Lutz, FL |
2 |
ENTRIES: 20
K&N FILTERS POLE AWARD: Cline
LEAD CHANGES: 1
LAP LEADERS: Allum, 1-26; Adams, 27-33
LAPS LED: Allum, 26; Adams, 7
CAUTIONS: 2 (1 Red)
OUTLAW RACING DISC BRAKES FAST BRAKE AWARD: Allum
SPEEDMART YOUNG GUN OF THE RACE: Tiffany
ROBISON RACING PRODUCTS ROOKIE OF THE RACE: Tiffany
HUGGINS CAMS HARD CHARGER: Adams (started 9th and finished 1st)
K&N FILTERS 3RD-PLACE AWARD: Bridges
BUTLERBUILT 4TH-PLACE AWARD: Tiffany
SPEEDMART TOP 5 AWARD: Martin
AIR FLOW RESEARCH 6TH-PLACE AWARD: Wrenn
FSR 7TH-PLACE AWARD: Gray
SIMPSON SAFETY PRODUCTS 8TH-PLACE AWARD:
AIR FLOW RESEARCH 10TH-PLACE AWARD: Darvalics
FSR PERFORMANCE AWARD: Neaves
WELD RACING HARD LUCK AWARD: Cline
KOOLBEANS TROPHY DASH QUALIFYING RACE - 6 LAPS: 1. Senecal; 2. Weller; 3. Parlett; 4. Neaves; 5. Harris; 6. McClain DNS.
ENGLER MACHINE AND TOOL 1ST HEAT - 10 LAPS: 1. Wrenn; 2. Martin; 3. Bridges; 4. Cline (R); 5. Gohn (R); 6. Allum; 7. Harris; 8. Darvalics (R); 9. McClain DNS.
BUTLERBUILT 2ND HEAT - 10 LAPS: 1. Adams; 2. Tiffany (R); 3. Gray; 4. Weller; 5. Johnson; 6. Parlett; 7. Neaves; 8. Senecal.
KOOLBEANS TROPHY DASH CHAMPIONSHIP RACE - 8 LAPS: 1. Allum; 2. Bridges; 3. Wrenn; 4. Parlett; 5. Weller; 6. Darvalics (R); 7. Neaves; 8. Johnson.
B-MAIN - 12 LAPS: 1. Allum; 2. Cline; 3. Gohn (R); 4. Adams; 5. Johnson; 6. Parlett; 7. Darvalics (R); 8. Neaves; 9. Thorman; 10. McClain; 11. Faulconer; 12. Lykins.
AIR FLOW RESEARCH POWER DASH - 6 LAPS: 1. Weller; 2. Tiffany (R); 3. Gray; 4. Bridges; 5. Johnson; 6. Martin.
O'REILLY USCS NATIONAL POINT STANDINGS THROUGH 10/1/05:
| POS |
DRIVER NAME |
POINTS |
| 1. |
Kenny Adams |
6005 |
| 2. |
Danny Martin Jr. |
5617 |
| 3. |
Terry Gray |
5482 |
| 4. |
Bryn Gohn (R) |
5387 |
| 5. |
Matt Tiffany (R) |
4893 |
| 6. |
R.J. Johnson |
4784 |
| 7. |
Skeeter Faulconer |
3548 |
| 8. |
Johnny Bridges |
2966 |
| 9. |
Chad Allum |
2902 |
| 10. |
Ryan Myers |
2828 |
FINAL 2005 POINT STANDINGS:
| POS |
DRIVER NAME |
POINTS |
| 1. |
. Kenny Adams |
1768 |
| 2. |
Terry Gray |
1739 |
| 3. |
Bryn Gohn (R) |
1653 |
| 4. |
Bruce Cline (R) |
1652 |
| 5. |
Chad Allum |
1628 |
| 6. |
Danny Martin Jr. |
1611 |
| 7. |
Johnny Bridges |
1572 |
| 8. |
Matt Tiffany (R) |
1540 |
| 9. |
R.J. Johnson |
1529 |
| 10. |
Brice Wrenn |
1167 |
R - Denotes Robison Racing Products Rookie of the Year Candidate
