In the third Showdown, North Carolina’s own Chris Ferguson earned the victory after an intense run to the checkered flag with Mike Marlar and Brian Shirley.
Marlar led from the start, showing the way in the early stages ahead of Hudson O’Neal and Ferguson. Brian Shirley found his mojo on the topside and worked his way into the top three just after halfway.
The big battle for the lead between Marlar, Ferguson and Shirley really began to heat up after a restart with seven laps to go, when Shirley made a great move on the top side around Ferguson for second and dove underneath Marlar for the lead into turn one with four laps remaining.
After Shirley completed the slidejob, Marlar crossed him over out of turn two as Ferguson dove to the inside, making it a three-wide battle for the lead down the backstretch and into turn three. Ferguson shot out of turn four like a cannonball and took the lead at the flag stand by inches, which he held and expanded through the next two circuits to pick up his very first victory of any kind at Fairbury.
“I’m just so pumped to get a win here,” Ferguson said. “I can quit racing, ‘cause I won at Fairbury!”
“Shirley and I raced clean the whole race. I saw him peeking on the outside, so I made sure to give him room. When [Shirley and Marlar] kind-of slipped up there in [turns] one and two, I knew I had to be there to take advantage. So, we did what we did and got the win.”
Ferguson’s only been to Fairbury a handful of times, debuting in 2016. But when Ferguson pulled his Sweet-Bloomquist Chassis No. 22 into victory lane on Friday night, the crowd erupted in a sea of applause and cheer, louder than any other heard that night.
“If I didn’t have a home track in North Carolina, it’d be here at Fairbury, just because the people here treat me so well,” Ferguson said.
In the final Showdown, 2015 series champion Shane Clanton continued his recent run of success by winning his second Showdown qualifier in three years at Fairbury over Billy Drake and Ricky Weiss.
First, Clanton had to get by polesitter Ashton Winger. Clanton passed a few cars on the top side prior to a caution on lap nine and decided to stick with it on the restart. This proved to be the decision that won the race, and he’ll now get an opportunity to start on the pole for tomorrow’s finale in the redraw.
“I knew I was good on the top, I just needed clean air,” Clanton said. “The exhaust from our cars helped to clean the middle groove off a little bit under caution and it gave me just enough to be tight enough across the middle and pull hard off the corner.”
“I’ve never started this far forward before,” Clanton added. “We’ve always run good, and even led this race before. Hopefully, we can capitalize on what we earned tonight and lead all 100 laps – that’d be phenomenal, but I hope we can just lead lap 100, because that’s what pays the money.”