Rougemont, NC – AJ Winstead, the SunTrust Mortgage and Commonwealth Environmental Associates sponsored driver, picked up his third win in the Rolling Thunder Modifieds Series this weekend holding off Thomas Stinson and Doug Paasch at the tour’s race at Orange County Speedway. This was the third race this season for the tour at the NC track and the racing was just as exciting as the last two visits.
Doug Paasch qualified his orange and blue #2 mod on the pole for the first time this season while Irvin Bell qualified on the outside pole. After qualifying the top-six qualifiers were inverted…making the #99 of AJ Winstead and the #91 of Dean Slappey leading the field of 13 to the green flag. As the green flag flew Winstead managed to take the lead with Slappey and Stinson in chase.
On lap 2 however the #46 car of TJ Guthrie and the #91 of Dean Slappey got together resulting in Guthrie taking a spin coming out of turn 2 bringing out the caution for the first time in the race. Guthrie, making his season debut, was able to turn his car around and continue racing.
The next multi-car incident occurred on lap 23 when pole sitter Doug Paasch and #11 Irvin Bell got together spinning out Paasch and launching the front of Bell’s car into the air. The #11 mod appeared to have suffered some front wheel/axle damage and came to rest on the outside of the pit road wall. Bell managed to drive the car back to the pit and was done for the night. Paasch managed to keep his mod off of the pit wall and was able to continue.
The race went back to green with Winstead still in the lead with Thomas Stinson fighting hard to take the lead away. For a while, Stinson was able to get underneath the high groove-running Winstead but was unable to make a complete pass. As this was going on, the battle for 3rd was heating up between the #91 car of Dean Slappey and the #22 car of Rodney Brooks. For several laps the two mods fought hard to keep the other car behind them making contact several times. The battle for the podium position came to a head on lap 46 as the #22 got into the back of the #91 spinning Slappey in between turns 3 & 4 bringing out the night’s 4th caution. During this caution both Brooks and Slappey were black flagged by officials for aggressive driving and sent to the back of the field.
Once the race went green again another caution for #04 Larry Penny’s single car spin put the caution right back out setting up for a three-lap shootout. The final restart saw Winstead get a multi-car lead over Stinson and Paasch resulting in Winstead’s 3rd victory of the season as well as being able to lead all 50 laps. Thomas Stinson held onto 2nd with a wide margin and Doug Paasch rebounded from the lap 23 spin for 3rd. TJ Guthrie also a victim of an early-race spin also recovered for 4th and Steve Denning managed to finish his #71 mod in 5th.
The Rolling Thunder Modifieds race again Saturday, July 28th right back here in Rougemont, NC at Orange County Speedway.
Official Results:
1. #99 AJ Winstead
2. #4 Thomas Stinson
3. #2 Doug Paasch
4. #46 TJ Guthrie
5. #71 Steve Denning
6. #22 Rodney Brooks
7. #91 Dean Slappey
8. #72 Robert Conner
9. #04 Larry Penny
10. #12 Andy Kemp
11. #10 David Winslow
12. #11 Irvin Bell
13. #43 Warren Lipford Jr.
14. #9 Tony Ingram
Pole: #11 Irvin Bell 15:01
