WHEATLAND, Mo. — J.C. Morton had a night to remember Saturday at Lucas Oil Speedway, capturing victories in both the featured Hermitage Lumber Late Models and Clear Creek Golf Cars USRA B-Mod divisions.
The Springfield driver took home $1,000 for the late model triumph, a hard-fought win over Robbe Ewing, after a rather comfortable B-Mod triumph a little earlier. Morton retained the Late Model lead by flirting with the wall coming off turn four on the final circuit.
“Man, I don’t even know,” Morton said of the final lap with Ewing. “I seen him down on the bottom and we raced side by side there. We exchanged some sliders. If you guys don’t like that, I don’t think you like racing.”
Just as he did in the B-Mod feature a half-hour earlier, Morton started on the pole and set the pace, opening a one-second lead over Tucker Cox by lap five.
Ewing moved into the second spot on lap six, with the first caution appearing a lap later to take away Morton’s 1.5-second lead. Ewing was able to take the lead on lap nine, taking advantage of Morton’s drift high entering turn two to draw close before using a slider in turn four for the pass.
Ewing had a one-second lead over Morton when caution flew on lap 11. Morton regained the lead on the restart with a slider of his own off turn two.
By lap 15, Ewing’s handing seemed to go away and Morton was able to extend the lead to 1.4 seconds. Then Ewing was able to get going again over the next few laps and worked his way back into contention by lap 22.
Morton used the high groove and Ewing the inside line the rest of the way and Morton – sailing his Moon Brothers Rocket to the cushion near the wall in turn four coming to the checkers – held on to prevail by one car length.
The second straight Hermitage Lumber Late Model win gives Morton the early season points lead in both divisions. Morton said that he and his dad, Gene, had talked about running for a double track championship prior to Gene’s passing in January.
“It’s still early, but before Dad passed we talked about this,” Morton said. “We’ve never won both points. We’ve won both features on the same night (before) but we’ll try to race all year and maintain and try to be here at the end and try to be a double-point champion. I don’t think that’s been done.
“We’ll shoot for the stars and see what happens.”
Other feature winners were Kyle Slader (Arctic Food Equipment USRA Modifieds), Jesse Stovall (USRA Modified make-up feature), Gary Clark (Hickamo Super Stocks) and Mason Beck (O’Reilly Auto Parts USRA Stock Cars).
