DAVENPORT, Iowa — Jimmy Owens led all but two laps to earn his second World of Outlaws Morton Buildings Late Model Series victory of the season Wednesday night at Davenport Speedway.
Owens dominated all night, kicking things off in qualifying with a track record and the PFC Brakes Fast Time Award on the half-mile dirt track. Owens also grabbed the win in Drydene Heat one and redrew inside row two.
Home-state favorite Brian Birkhofer also won his Drydene Heat race and walked up to the redraw to a thunderous round of applause from an abundance of his fans in the packed grandstands and pulled out the remaining pole position.
At the green flag, “Birky” took off like a rocket and immediately opened up a sizable gap over Owens and Darrell Lanigan before a red flag was thrown for a big wreck in between turns three and four, involving Chad Simpson and Brent Larson.
Everyone walked away from the incident unharmed. Their cars however, did not, and Birkhofer soon found himself in the same boat. The quick-change component in the rear-end had broken just before the red was thrown and Birkhofer parked it for the night before the field came back to life under yellow.
This handed the lead to Owens, who grabbed the clean air by the horns on the ensuing restart and never gave up the lead through the remaining 38 laps. At one point, his lead stretched to just under five whole seconds before hitting lapped traffic.
Owens was met with two restarts before the checkered flag fell, one taking 2018 World of Outlaws Champion Mike Marlar out of the race in a big cloud of smoke on a lap-33 restart.
Owens took off on the final restart and left the field in the dust to collect the 14th World of Outlaws feature win of his career.
“We were great, right from the time we unloaded,” Owens remarked. “This is the first time I’ve been here, and it’s a big ol’ race track. About halfway down the straight-away, your motor is just like ‘give me a break!’ But everything worked out great for us.”
Brandon Sheppard and the Rocket1 Racing team again continued their power trip on the circuit, coming in behind Owens to bag the runner-up spot and their 20th podium finish of the season.
Much like Owens acknowledged about himself, Cade Dillard had also never previously seen the Davenport facility. But what a great run he and the rest of his crew were able to put together on Wednesday night, as Dillard scored his first podium finish of the year after battling in the late stages with former series champion Shane Clanton.
“The track was getting a bit rough up top and I was starting to bottom-out at the end,” Dillard said. “I was just trying to hold onto what we had and finish and not knock the fence down.”
The finish:
Feature (40 Laps) 1. 20-Jimmy Owens [3][$10,000]; 2. 1-Brandon Sheppard [10][$5,000]; 3. 97-Cade Dillard [8][$3,000]; 4. 25-Shane Clanton [7][$2,500]; 5. 18-Chase Junghans [5][$2,000]; 6. 7-Ricky Weiss [11][$1,700]; 7. 29-Darrell Lanigan [4][$1,400]; 8. 28-Dennis Erb [12][$1,300]; 9. 99B-Boom Briggs [9][$1,200]; 10. 54-Mike Fryer [19][$1,100]; 11. 43-Jeremy Grady [20][$1,050]; 12. 31AUS-Paul Stubber [21][$1,000]; 13. 32-Bobby Pierce [15][$950]; 14. 157-Mike Marlar [2][$900]; 15. 29D-Spencer Diercks [13][$850]; 16. 32s-Chris Simpson [18][$800]; 17. 58-Dave Eckrich [17][$770]; 18. 22B-Jonathan Brauns [16][$750]; 19. 6-Blake Spencer [23][$730]; 20. 17-Tim Simpson [24][$700]; 21. 15K-Justin Kay [25][$700]; 22. 15b-Brian Birkhofer [1][$700]; 23. 25s-Chad Simpson [6][$700]; 24. B1-Brent Larson [14][$700]; 25. 25h-Chuck Hummer [22][$700]
Hard Charger: 54-Mike Fryer [+9]