HARLAN, Iowa — Shelby County Speedway simply had it all.
Four different leaders in the feature. Racing from the infield to the wall. Leaders colliding on the final lap. and a drag race to the checkered flag.
From ninth in the starting order, Ethan Dotson wasn’t on the radar of potential contenders for the win for most of Saturday’s World of Outlaws Late Model Series presented by DIRTVision debut at Shelby County. But the Bakersfield, Calif., native, worked his way into the top five by the halfway point of the 50-lapper, then up to third with eight laps to go. That meant Dotson was in prime position when chaos broke out.
The chaos in question came between Daulton Wilson and Bobby Pierce, who pulled away from earlier leaders Nick Hoffman and Dennis Erb Jr. to race for the win down the stretch. Pierce tried everything he could to get past the No. 58V, but Wilson matched every move to keep Pierce behind him. That was until the white flag flew.
On the bottom of Turn 1, Wilson spun on his own right in front of Pierce, who had nowhere to go but the side of Wilson’s car. The contact pointed Wilson back in the right direction and allowed him to drive away while Pierce was spun backwards. By series rules, Wilson maintained the lead because his wheels never stopped turning, but Pierce was sent to the tail when his car came to a stop.
The green-white-checkered restart opened the door for Dotson to enter the picture. Wilson remained committed to the bottom for the last two laps, so Dotson elected to rip the cushion for all it was worth in search of his first World of Outlaws win of the year. Dotson got to Wilson’s outside off of Turn 2, then cleared him exiting Turn 4 to win by a car length.
“The line I was running, nobody was really running down there [in Turns 1 and 2],” Dotson said. “Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good there. Hate it for Bobby and Daulton, but the way it’s been going for me lately, I’ll take a little luck. I figured if I could get around the top down there and get a run on him, I saw [Wilson]’s guy telling him to run the bottom. Just all kind of fell together finally.”
Behind Wilson in second, Justin Duty scored a new World of Outlaws career best in third, while Tristan Chamberlain finished fourth for his best result of the season. Hoffman rounded out the top five.
The finish:
Feature (50 Laps): 1. 74X-Ethan Dotson[9]; 2. 58V-Daulton Wilson[1]; 3. 15D-Justin Duty[3]; 4. 20TC-Tristan Chamberlain[5]; 5. 9-Nick Hoffman[4]; 6. 1-Tyler Erb[11]; 7. 9M-Tim McCreadie[14]; 8. 13-Dallon Murty[6]; 9. B1-Brent Larson[7]; 10. 43-Derrick Stewart[13]; 11. 19R-Ryan Gustin[8]; 12. 19-Dustin Sorensen[17]; 13. 32-Bobby Pierce[15]; 14. 76-Blair Nothdurft[10]; 15. 14-Trey Mills[16]; 16. 6-Jake Neal[20]; 17. 1Z-Logan Zarin[12]; 18. 04-Tad Pospisil[21]; 19. 53-Andrew Kosiski[19]; 20. 80-Allan Hopp[25]; 21. 4-JC Wyman[24]; 22. 62-Justin Zeitner[22]; 23. 55E-Eli Johnson[18]; 24. 28-Dennis Erb Jr[2]; 25. 1X-Aaron Marrant[23]
