SENOIA, Ga. — Ashton Winger had an opportunity he knew he couldn’t waste. He’s tasted victory with the World of Outlaws before but never in front of his home crowd.
The Hampton, Ga., driver cashed in on that chance, leading every lap to win Saturday’s World of Outlaws Morton Buildings Late Model feature at Senoia Raceway.
Winger rose from his car with excitement, pounding his fists on the roof before dropping his steering wheel in celebration. It’s a win he thought might not have happened as his team hustled to make sure the car was ready.
“We didn’t even know if we were going to get the chance to race; this thing was in a million pieces [Friday] night,” Winger said. “I felt like at the middle stage of the race I had a good rhythm, but early I felt like I was kind of dead in the water.
“When we got to lapped traffic the first time, I didn’t feel as good as I needed to, so I’m glad everything worked out the way it did.”
Even though he led all 40 laps, Winger didn’t dominate the race. Chris Madden and Mark Whitener challenged the Georgia campaigner for the lead on multiple occasions
“[Senoia] is one of the places where if you get bottled up behind someone for a lap, it’s half a second,” Winger said. “When I’m looking on the [scoreboard], and I see Madden on there, and Whitener and guys that are pretty good in this area, I can’t sit there and mess with [lap traffic] for very long.”
Saturday’s win is Winger’s second World of Outlaws triumph of the season and third of his career.
Madden crossed the line second—his 26th top-five finish of 2021.
“We made a couple of runs at him there, and I just left my car too free tonight, and it cost me,” Madden said. “I thought we were going to have a shot at him at the end.”
Mark Whitener finished third, matching his best finish with the World of Outlaws in 2021.
“We were almost there tonight, we worked on it all night long, and I don’t think we started tuning our motor quick enough,” Whitener said. “We overworked our car, and when we killed the horsepower, we were snug and tight in the feature.”
Tyler Bruening, the top rookie of the race, finished fourth after starting 12th. Ricky Weiss rounded out the top five.
The finish:
Feature (40 Laps)-1. 12-Ashton Winger [2][$10,000]; 2. 44-Chris Madden [3][$6,000]; 3. 58-Mark Whitener [5][$3,500]; 4. 16-Tyler Bruening [12][$2,800]; 5. 7-Ricky Weiss [11][$2,500]; 6. 1-Brandon Sheppard [13][$2,300]; 7. 28-Dennis Erb [4][$2,200]; 8. 11K-Austin Kirkpatrick [16][$2,100]; 9. 18X-Michael Page [18][$2,050]; 10. 66K-Dylan Knowles [7][$2,000]; 11. 17B-David Breazeale [6][$1,600]; 12. 16W-Ben Watkins [22][$1,400]; 13. 99B-Boom Briggs [20][$1,200]; 14. 10-Joseph Joiner [8][$1,100]; 15. 18-Matt Dooley [19][$1,050]; 16. 26JR-Jimmy Sharpe [15][$1,000]; 17. 9-Jason Croft [24][$1,000]; 18. 4-Ryan Wilson [21][$1,000]; 19. OO-Jason Turner [23][$1,000]; 20. 16H-Austin Horton [14][$1,000]; 21. B1-Brent Larson [1][$1,000]; 22. 19R-Ryan Gustin [9][$1,000]; 23. O3-Oliver Gentry [17][$1,000]; 24. F1-Payton Freeman [10][$1,000] Hard Charger: 16W-Ben Watkins[+10]