Saturday night at Dominion saw things “get back to normal” with racing finally resuming after scheduled weeks off and rain, Peyton Sellers putting Sellers racing back in victory lane, and “The King” Philip Morris was in attendance. The night was in honor of Morris’s son Blake Morris and the Geico Late Models ran twin 72 lap features. Morris was there for the tribute evening and so that Blake’s late model could lead the field to the green flag in both features. The night kicked off with qualifying with current national points leader Layne Riggs taking the pole award with a time of 15.366 over Doug Barnes’s 15.448. Riggs drew a 5 after qualifying and that put Mini Tyrell on the pole for feature one. He took the green and was able to hold the lead for the first several laps until Riggs went past and began to stretch out his lead. Behind Riggs, Michael Hardin, Trent Barnes, Davey Callihan, Sellers, Justin Martz, and Parker Eatmon were all racing hard for fourth through ninth. Just past the midway point at lap 31, three of the top running drivers, Sellers, Barnes, and Martz were involved in an incident on the backstretch with a lap car. Sellers and Martz would make repairs and be able to continue, but Barnes was done for the night. Following that caution, Riggs was able to get a solid restart and drive away to pick up his second win in the last three features. Rounding out the top four were current points leader Doug Barnes, Michael Hardin, and Callihan. Mason Bailey was trying to make it two in a row but was unable to finish due to a mechanical issue relegating him to a 21 st place finish.
Feature number two saw G.R. Waldrop lead the field to the green flag following the mandatory eight car invert. With in three laps, Sellers, who started third after his comeback from the altercation and damage, drove past Waldrop to take the lead. The race stayed clean and green until there were 20 laps to go, and as typically happens, cautions breed cautions, and there were three in 10 laps, including
a red flag.
On each restart, Callihan, after getting up to second position, took the inside of the front row for the restarts after Sellers went to the outside of the cone. Each time though, Sellers was just too tough and drove away each time to pick up his sixth feature win on the season. Callihan came home second, Doug Barnes third and Riggs Fourth.
The Virginia Racer Late Models were in action as well Saturday making their first appearance since June 18th. JD Eversole was second fastest behind Eddie Slagle in qualifying and would start second after Slagle drew a three for the invert. Eversole was out front from beginning to end, but it looked like in the late stages, Slagle was going to make a serious bid for the win. Following a restart with 14 laps to go, Slagle was able to get to Eversole’s bumper several times, and even got alongside his rear quarter panel, but was never able to complete the pass. Eversole took the checkered with Slagle second and Mike Ganoe third. Current points leader Alex Brock came home fifth.
The UCAR division had twin 20 lap features and Michael Frayser helped to tighten up the points battle by picking up the win in feature number one. Current points leader Dallas Cosby came home fifth.
The second feature saw Mike Chapman pick up the win. Cosby was able to get the championship points back by finishing second to Frayser’s Fifth.
Richard Powers got the win in the Dominion Stock class. Powers was able to extend his points lead over Jacob Wood who finished sixth, and Todd Ruggles who scored a DNF and placed 11th.
Bradley Wilson won the Any Car feature for the four-cylinder cars and John Andrews won the eight cylinder Any Car class.
Saturday the sixth will have the Virginia Racer Late Models back in action with twin 35 lap features. Several classes will be having make up races and twins as well. Please check Dominion’s Facebook page and website for classes that will be running. Gates open at 5 and green flag drops at 7pm.
