This year it was the South that won. Billy Morris, after a long absence, made a triumphant return to the Rolling Thunder Modifieds beating out 28 other teams (which came from as far away as Maine and Florida) for victory honors at a chilly Concord Motorsport Park.
Prior to the actual race PASS called for three 10-lap qualifying races to determine the feature lineup. Of those races #22 of Rodney Brooks, #11 of Irvin Bell and #3ct of Shane Tominski won their respectable heats which allowed them to start 1st, 2nd, and 3rd for the main feature.
The black and yellow #22 of Rodney Brooks led the 25-car field to the green flag and quickly became the car to beat as he was able to pull away from the field by several car lengths early. Within a handful of laps Brooks had developed close to a half a lap lead when he became embattled with slower cars, Brooks was able to clear lapped traffic however others weren’t so lucky as a collection of cars becamed entangled with lapped traffic coming out of turn 3, brining out the first caution.
After the green flag came back out, Brooks again managed to clear ahead of the rest of the pack, leaving the rest of the top 6 battling amongst themselves. #44 of Kurt Vigeant, a mod driver from Thompson Speedway in Connecticut was driving toe to to with points leader AJ Winstead, Langley Speedway’s Rookie of the Year Joe Scarbrough, and eventual winner Billy Morris riding behind them.
Two more cautions occurred which began to hurt Brooks as his multi-car leads were dissolved. Eventually Winstead managed to hang with Brooks after one restart and managed a bump-and-run off of turn three and was able to make the pass for the lead, along with Vigeant, Scarbrough, and Morris moving Brooks back to 5th position. After the pass, Winstead found that he was unable to get a lead as Morris, passing Scarbrough and Vigeant as they were battling for position was able to stay with Winstead, ultimately making a pass for the lead. Once Morris passed Winstead he was able to stay there and took the checkers a few laps later.
Winstead managed to hold onto 2nd place but the real nail biter was for 3rd as Vigeant and Scarbrough came off of turn 3 side-by-side and came across the line with Vigeant leading by inches and with Scarbrough running with his right tires up in
the air.
With his 2nd place finish, AJ Winstead in the SunTrust Mortgage and Commonwealth Enviormental Associates sponsored car clinched his first RTM Series Championship and performed a victory burnout after the race in celebration. In the 2007 season, AJ had an impressive record of 7 wins, 10 top-5’s, and one pole. AJ earlier this year clinched the Orange County Speedway Track Championship Presented by Racing Electronics.
Congratulations to Billy Morris for the win and congratulations to AJ Winstead for his two championships this season.
OFFICIAL RESULTS
1. #55 Billy Morris
2. #99 AJ Winstead
3. #44 Kurt Vigeant
4. #30 Joe Scarbrough
5. #22 Rodney Brooks
6. #11 Irvin Bell
7. #91x Marlin Gunter
8. #8 Mike Hanbury
9. #21x Aubrey Thurston
10. #19 Dustin Bryson
11. #10 David Winslow
12. #43 Warren Lipford
13 #2 Doug Paasch
14. #3 David Kendall
15. #04 Larry Penny
16. #38 Michael Johnson
17. #6me Troy Morse
18. #3ct Shane Tominski
19. #39 Toby Davis
20. #9 Tony Ingram
21. #91 Dean Slappey
22. #69 Rusty Wood
23. #80 Scott Smith
24. #6 Buster Horne Jr.
25. #34 Ted Montague
26. #27 Andy Kemp
DNS #12 Tim Maxey
DNS #72 Robert Conner
