CHILLICOTHE, Ohio — Ryan Gustin gave an ode to Scott Bloomquist by channeling his inner “Dirt Track Dominator” on Saturday night at Atomic Speedway.
Topping the scoring pylon in each appearance on the three-eighths-mile race track, the Marshalltown, Iowa, driver led all 50 laps through a wave of challenges from multiple World of Outlaws CASE Construction Equipment late model competitors.
Gustin was the fast qualifier and won the third heat to start on the pole for the main event.
Firing on all cylinders at the commencement of the 50-lap feature, Gustin ripped the high line to escape Brandon Sheppard, Cade Dillard and Bobby Pierce.
In the battle for the top five, Sheppard followed Gustin until contact with the lapped car of Dennis Erb Jr ripped the left rear quarter panel off his No.B5 Longhorn Chassis, then Dillard caught a piece of Erb to damage his right rear quarter panel. Sheppard and Dillard kept on rolling with the damage lingering on their cars.
Gustin got away on the restart as Sheppard held his own with the damage to his car. Dillard had to retire his No.97 machine with a smack of the turn-four wall that sent a dagger into his hopes of salvaging a rebound result at Atomic after a DNF on Friday night.
While leading, Gustin ripped the rear spoiler off his No.19r Infinity Chassis and began to dangle until the caution flew for debris from Sheppard’s left-rear quarter panel falling off.
When the green flag flew once more with 14 laps to go, Pierce sent his No.32 Megan’s Mission machine deep into turn one, then slid up on Sheppard to force him off the track to claim second place in a move that caused implications the season-long points battle.
Sheppard dropped to seventh, Brian Shirley took third and fellow championship contender Nick Hoffman inherited fourth.
While Gustin had aero troubles with the loss of his spoiler, he maintained the gap on Pierce through the remaining circuits for his fourth win of the season.
In Victory Lane, he celebrated with Scott Bloomquist’s infamous “hang loose” signal and a point to the sky to the man who meant a lot to Gustin as a mentor and friend. He also dedicated the win to his son, Bradyn, who turned 12 on Saturday.
“It means the absolute world to me,” Gustin said. “It’s been rough, I’m sure we made him proud up there tonight. We were handicapped pretty bad when you lose a spoiler like that. I thought we were done, but the only way to win was to drive like a madman like we did for the last (14) laps.
“Tim (Douglas) was telling me I had a pretty big lead before lap traffic, but its hard when you got guys that can catch up pretty fast to you. Cautions definitely helped us for sure to get us going again, but anytime you can win with no spoiler is a testament to how good these Infinity Chassis are and these Jay Dickens Engines run flawlessly. It’s also my son’s birthday today so I wanted to get one for him.”
Pierce finished second to finish the weekend by closing the distance to Sheppard in the championship hunt to 54 points with seven races left.
“I love the finish,” Pierce said. “It’s good to end the weekend with a first and second, but I didn’t like how I got there. When I passed Sheppard, he got off the track and I know he wouldn’t have fell off the track if he had more room there. I did kinda come up into his line. It’s such a tricky deal when the top has so much speed and you’re trying to make passes here.”
Shirley finished third for his fifth consecutive podium finish in August with the World of Outlaws CASE Late Models.
“The track was really demanding,” Shirley said. “It was one of those deals where we were good, but not the greatest. I just had to bide my time, get by guys when I could on the restarts, and lucky enough for things to fall our way to end up third.”
Hoffman finished fourth with an 18-place climb from a 22nd-place starting spot. Adam Stricker finished the night with a fifth-place result to end his weekend with the series.
The finish:
Feature (50 Laps): 1. 19R-Ryan Gustin[1]; 2. 32-Bobby Pierce[4]; 3. 3S-Brian Shirley[10]; 4. 9-Nick Hoffman[22]; 5. 68-Adam Stricker[7]; 6. 19M-Spencer Hughes[5]; 7. B5-Brandon Sheppard[2]; 8. 20TC-Tristan Chamberlain[12]; 9. 40B-Kyle Bronson[15]; 10. 19-Dustin Sorensen[11]; 11. 16-Tyler Bruening[18]; 12. 71C-RJ Conley[16]; 13. 17-Zack Dohm[13]; 14. B1-Brent Larson[24]; 15. 22*-Max McLaughlin[20]; 16. 71R-Rod Conley[19]; 17. 90-Michael LeFevers[25]; 18. S21-Seth Daniels[8]; 19. 1-Tyler Erb[6]; 20. 11-Jared Hawkins[14]; 21. 97-Cade Dillard[3]; 22. C4-Freddie Carpenter[17]; 23. 28-Dennis Erb Jr[23]; 24. 97JR-Cody Overton[9]; 25. 57B-Caiden Black[21]