SEYMOUR, Tenn. — Is eight enough? Probably not, knowing the proficiency of Jimmy Owens at 411 Motor Speedway.
Continuing a remarkable stretch of racing at the 3/8-mile oval just an hour from his hometown of Newport, Tenn., Owens absolutely dominated Tuesday’s 50-lap Castrol FloRacing Night in America event to capture his eighth consecutive visit to the Mitch McCarter-promoted oval.
Launching into the lead from outside the front row and never looking back in the caution-free event, Owens took the checkers 3.467 seconds ahead of runner-up Chris Madden with pole-starting Mike Marlar in third.
“He was plumb out of sight,” Madden rightly surmised of the victorious driver whose streak started with a 2019 victories followed by three victories in 2020, two last season (including in Castrol tour action) and two in the current campaign.
Why is Owens so good at 411 Motor Speedway? “It likes me,” Owens said. “I like it.”
Owens lapped all but 10 competitors in grabbing his second career tour victory with Madden and Marlar on the podium. Cory Hedgecock advanced four positions to finish fourth and 10th-starting Bobby Pierce rounded out the top five in his 411 debut.
Owen wasn’t sure he had winning car in hot laps, but he settled in during time trials and when he earned an outside front-row starting spot for the third heat he was feeling pretty good.
“I felt like the track would come to us, and it did. So we took off,” Owens said. “I had the perfect spot in the heat race to take off from and same in the feature. Things just played out in our favor.”
Building leads of more than four seconds while Marlar and then Madden gave chase from the second spot, Owens found himself getting a little greedy late in the race as he mowed through slower traffic, including last week’s tour winner at Tri-County Racetrack in Brasstown, N.C., Dale McDowell.
“When I got to Dale, I really wanted to lap Dale, because he runs good here, too. I felt good about that. But I got those guys and kind of fizzled out,” Owens said. “My tires started sealing up on me and stuff, and then I was trying to see where the other guys was up (behind) me and I thought, ‘Well, I’m lapping these cars, that’s pretty good.’
“But then I looked to the infield and see they’re all pulling in, and I thought ‘Well, that ain’t no fair.’ “But it was a fun race. A lot of stiff cars here. Chris Madden, you know to beat him, he’s been awesome this year, him and (non-entry Jonathan Davenport). And Mikey (Marlar) has been really, really good. And so there’s a lot of good cars here (at 411) and we’re proud to have a win.”
Madden notched his fifth consecutive top-five finish overall but he’s looking for his first victory since Aug. 9 during a 14-victory season.
“We had excellent race car. Me and Mikey, we raced hard and raced for a long time out there. Jimmy was able to get out — he was plumb out of sight. But we was able to go back to him, you know, decently there at the end, but I felt really good about what we had tonight,” Madden said, crediting McCarter for providing an “excellent racetrack” for the midweek end. “We’ve been working hard at home, a lot of time and a lot of late nights. We found a few things that was just overlooked and we’ve got him back right now and feel really good about our package again.”
Marlar had a tight battle with Madden but knew one of them was going to settle for the runner-up spot with Owens far ahead.
“If Jimmy would’ve stayed at the house, me and Chris would’ve put on a show there, I believe,” Marlar quipped.
“The last three or four (Castrol events) have been rough on us, but it’s nice to get (on the podium) tonight,” Marlar added. “The McCarters have an awesome facility and racetrack here. It was really fun racing out there. Congratulations to Jimmy, he really had an awesome night, and Chris. Fun race, fun night, glad to get this thing back in the top three and quit having having those gremlins.”
The Finish:
Feature (50 Laps): 1. 20-Jimmy Owens[2]; 2. 44-Chris Madden[4]; 3. 157-Mike Marlar[1]; 4. 23-Cory Hedgecock[8]; 5. 32-Bobby Pierce[10]; 6. 1-Brandon Sheppard[5]; 7. 83-Jensen Ford[6]; 8. 20RT-Ricky Thornton Jr[3]; 9. 7W-Ricky Weiss[12]; 10. 17M-Dale McDowell[7]; 11. 71-Hudson O’Neal[11]; 12. 6-Kyle Larson[9]; 13. 58-Garrett Alberson[16]; 14. 7M-Donald McIntosh[18]; 15. 6L-Victor Lee[19]; 16. 90-John Llewellyn[13]; 17. (DNF) 11-Spencer Hughes[15]; 18. (DNF) 109-Eli Beets[20]; 19. (DNF) 22D-Dustin Linville[14]; 20. (DNF) 116-Cameron Weaver[22]; 21. (DNF) 6C-Clay Coghlan[17]; 22. (DNF) C5-David Crabtree[21]