BEAVER DAM, Wis. — Jimmy Owens picked up a dominant victory in Tuesday night’s World of Outlaws Morton Buildings Late Model Series feature at Beaver Dam Raceway.
Returning to the three-eighths-mile for the first time in 11 years, Owens and his Ramirez Motorsports crew continued their remarkable 2020 campaign with a runaway score in the midweek $10,000-to-win feature.
Leading the final 39 laps after roaring by early leader Cade Dillard, Owens snagged his 19th career World of Outlaws win and his fourth win of the year in only eight starts with the series.
Shuffling the frontrunners in the Morton Buildings Redraw, Owens drew the pole position with fellow Drydene Performance Products heat winner Dillard to his outside. Allowing the MB Customs No. 97 to assume the early lead, it looked as if Dillard was poised for career win No. 3 while he controlled the opening stages and seemed mighty strong doing it.
Lap 11 hit the boards and it all changed, however, as Owens approached Dillard on the low side and quickly ripped the grasp of the top spot right away and put the Rocket Chassis No. 20 to P1 with 39 to go. From there, Owens never received another serious challenge, but he did have one near night-ending moment at the halfway mark.
Heading into lap traffic, Owens darted to the bottom of the frontstretch at the exact moment Brett Swedberg planned to pull his entry into the infield and retire for the race. Smashing the brakes and getting on the binders hard, Owens couldn’t slow it all the way down and made contact with Swedberg’s No. 3 spinning him around, but somehow kept his machine rolling with minimal damage and held on to the lead.
The near disastrous moment was the only thing that could bring any question into Owens’ dominant 3.572-advantage on Tuesday night.
“This car was flawless all night long,” Owens said. “There was just enough moisture up there in turns one and two to give you some good grip, and this car would cut right back across the corner and give us so much speed. We could run the middle, bottom, just about everywhere in turns three and four, it was real maneuverable. This Ramirez Rocket is rolling right now. We’ve got some great chemistry between this bunch of guys. We’re all working real well together. I’m excited for USA Nationals this weekend.”
Chasing Owens to the finish line, ” Billy Moyer held second for much of the 50-lapper and survived a frantic fight to the finish between he and Cade Dillard for the runner-up spot. It marked his first podium finish since June of 2019 aboard the Karl Chevrolet, Capital Race Cars No. 21.
“Man, we would’ve had an awesome race for the win back there if Jimmy wasn’t up front stinking it up,” Moyer joked. “They did a great job tonight though. This crew has been working real hard and we keep making gains night-in and night-out, we’ve just got a little more to go. We’ll take this good run though. I’m excited to move on to Cedar Lake.”
Rounding out the top five at Beaver Dam Raceway was DIRTcar Summer Nationals points leader Brian Shirley in fourth and Lucas Oil Late Models regular Kyle Bronson in fifth.
The finish:
Feature (50 laps): 1. 20-Jimmy Owens [1][$10,000]; 2. 21-Billy Moyer [3][$5,000]; 3. 97-Cade Dillard [2][$3,000]; 4. 3s-Brian Shirley [8][$2,500]; 5. 40b-Kyle Bronson [6][$2,000]; 6. 1-Brandon Sheppard [11][$1,700]; 7. 18-Chase Junghans [14][$1,400]; 8. 12-Ashton Winger [17][$1,300]; 9. 0-Scott Bloomquist [19][$1,200]; 10. 7-Ricky Weiss [9][$1,100]; 11. 99b-Boom Briggs [12][$1,050]; 12. 0e-Rick Eckert [10][$1,000]; 13. 19r-Ryan Gustin [7][$950]; 14. 15-Nick Anvelink [24][$900]; 15. 15s-Taylor Scheffler [18][$850]; 16. 74-Mitch McGrath [22][$800]; 17. B1-Brent Larson [20][$770]; 18. 28-Dennis Erb [4][$750]; 19. 0r-Mark Rose [16][$730]; 20. 99jr-Frank Heckenast [5][$700]; 21. 10-Paul Parker [23][$700]; 22. 3-Brett Swedberg [21][$700]; 23. 29v-Darrell Lanigan [13][$700]; 24. 157-Mike Marlar [15][$700]. Lap Leader(s): Dillard 1-11; Owens 12-50. Hard Charger Award: 0-Scott Bloomquist[+10]