LIMA, Ohio — Colten Burdette came into Friday night’s Late Model Mania presented by LuseStyle.com as the Valvoline American Late Model Iron Man Series Points leader, but was yet to get his first Iron Man victory.
He marked that checkbox in dramatic fashion by passing for the lead and the win on the last lap at Limaland Motorsports Park on Friday night. It was the first late model race at the quarter-mile track since 2007.
As the green flag waved, Burdette piloted his No. 53c to the lead with Clint Keenan battling for the point. As Burdette began to stretch the lead out, caution waved on lap 7 as the No. 317 of Blake Creech spun.
On the restart, Rod Conley would show Burdette the nose of his car and try to make a move for the lead, but all eyes were looking further back as Jeff Babcock began taming the high line around Limaland to charge his way to the front.
Babcock took the No. 7b to fifth on lap 9, then to third on lap 12.
On lap 15 he made his way to second and then took advantage of lapped traffic to grab the lead on lap 24. As Babcock was maneuvering his way to the front, Rusty Schlenk was quietly making moves to follow Babcock to the front. Schlenk grabbed third on lap 24 and began to close on the leaders, until the caution flew one more time on lap 28, setting up a two-lap dash to the finish.
On the restart, Babcock went back to the top of the race track and did all he could to hold off Burdette, but Burdette was able to slide past Babcock on the final lap and hold off Babcock and Schlenk at the line.
Seth Daniels would finish fourth and Keenan would complete the top five.
Justin Long won the thunderstock feature and Dillon Nusbaum topped the modified main event.
The finish:
Feature (30 Laps): 1. 53C-Colten Burdette[1]; 2. 7B-Jeff Babcock[7]; 3. 91-Rusty Schlenk[8]; 4. S21-Seth Daniels[4]; 5. 29-Clint Keenan[3]; 6. 71R-Rod Conley[5]; 7. 1N-Casey Noonan[11]; 8. 46-Colin Shipley[9]; 9. 18C-Miles Cook II[16]; 10. 95-Jerry Bowersock[13]; 11. 50-Ryan Missler[2]; 12. 1-Shane Bailey[14]; 13. 44-Scott Boyd Jr[18]; 14. 8-Rob Anderzack[15]; 15. 56-BJ Gregory[17]; 16. 75-Dusty Moore[10]; 17. 317-Blake Creech[6]; 18. 71DS-Drew Smith[20]; 19. G15-Jacob Gamber[19]; 20. 151-Trace Settles[21]; 21. 63-Terry Rushlow[12]; 22. (DNS) 114-Clayton Bryant
