BARBERVILLE, Fla. — Trent Ivey came to Volusia Speedway Park to add some good stock to his racing program.
Leaving the seventh edition of DIRTcar Sunshine Nationals, he’ll need room to fit two trophies earned from 602 Late Model racing at the half-mile track.
Hayden Cardwell began the week as the World of Outlaws iRacing Pro Series winner, and exited as the overall points champion after contending for the Feature win each night.
Polesitter Dawson Lowe led the field of 30 cars to the green flag as Cardwell split Chase Blackwell and Wyatt Coffey three wide across the backstretch to take second place as Coffey slotted into third, and Ivey took over fourth.
When the caution waved on Lap 5, multiple drivers used the restart as a way to steal multiple positions for early momentum. Coffey used the middle lane to his advantage by outrunning Cardwell for second, then sliced to the bottom of Lowe to take the lead. The race for the lead did not end immediately as Cardwell tossed a slide job in Turns 3-4 for the top point.
After a Lap 15 multi-car incident on the frontstretch halted the racing momentarily, the “Lil’ Headknocker” took his opportunity to fight against the leaders on the restart by taking over second from Coffey through Turns 3-4 as Cardwell tried to run away from the field.
With four laps remaining, Ivey threw his Late Model to the bottom and slid up on Cardwell. The two made contact with Ivey’s right rear hitting Cardwell’s left front bumper. They both had to save cars, but did not lose enough speed to lose positions as Ivey became the new leader.
Ivey grew his margin to Cardwell by one second as he caps the weekend with two victories and a combined $4,500 from his efforts.
“I just want to apologize to Hayden,” Ivey said. “I caught him a lot quicker than I thought, and I didn’t plan on really sliding him, but I hit the inside wall and I just ended up in it. But, we’re down here racing, trying to keep our name in a hat, let people know we got some good stock in Trent Ivey Racing.”
While Cardwell left the feature without the finale trophy, his two wins and runner-up performance across three days earned him a first career Surfboard trophy.
“It’s cool, this thing’s been badass all week,” Cardwell said. “So, yeah, it sucks to get raced like that. We kind of fell off pretty bad there toward the end of the race. I race everybody as clean as I possibly can, but it’s just unfortunate. I knew Trent was obviously pretty good there, but it is what it is.”
The finish:
Feature (20 Laps): 1. 28I-Trent Ivey[5]; 2. 17C-Hayden Cardwell[4]; 3. 611-Koulten Herbert[8]; 4. 2-Wyatt Coffey[2]; 5. 67-Logan Bradford[15]; 6. 25W-Wiley McDaniel[11]; 7. 51-Mack McCarter[16]; 8. T9-Brodie Thompson[18]; 9. 3-Grayson Ott[17]; 10. 16-Dawson Lowe[1]; 11. 53-Brandon Yates[21]; 12. 21-Mario Gresham[9]; 13. 7K-Matthew Kade[10]; 14. 131-Matt Herlong[14]; 15. 51C-Luke Clements[12]; 16. 6-Chase Blackwell[3]; 17. 01-Ben Lanford[13]; 18. 17J-Griffin Jones[19]; 19. KO-Caylan Kettle[20]; 20. 88-Dustin Rollins[27]; 21. 1-Hania Humphries[29]; 22. 25-Brandon Lunsford[25]; 23. 9-John Marshall Pursley[7]; 24. 21M-Mayson Mossow[30]; 25. 28B-Jeff Queen[24]; 26. 17B-Timmy Blackwell[22]; 27. 1M-Morghan Johnson[28]; 28. 27-Tim Ryan[23]; 29. 7L-Jordan Lockhart[6]; 30. 28-Austin Leamon[26]
