WEST MEMPHIS, Ark. — Ryan Timms made the right moves at the right time to win Sunday night’s Lucas Oil ASCS Sprint Week presented by Smiley’s Racing Products feature at Riverside Int’l Speedway.
Timms’ first career Sprint Week victory the win comes just 10 races after landing his first National Tour win at Lake Ozark Speedway.
Working through a myriad of cautions and red flags, the feature came down to a massive battle for the win that resulted in a bigger crash. Looking like Jeff Swindell’s race to dominate, the No. 94 tripped up just enough on lap 26 to allow Matt Covington to move in. With a wave of momentum, Covington took over the point the following lap.
To the white with the win in sight, slower traffic in the final two turns presented Jeff Swindell an opportunity to pull off the upset.
Going full send to the bottom of the third turn, Swindell slid past Covington for the lead, but too much momentum into the cushion stalled Jeff’s run and caused the No. 94 to get tight and make contact with the wall, collecting Covington and Hahn in the accident.
Going red just as Ryan Timms shot by the crash, the checkered flag was not displayed, and the field dashed to a green-white-checkered finish with Timms able to fend off Dylan Westbrook.
“I slid Blake earlier in the race in that same corner, and I didn’t even slide him that hard, but there wasn’t much up there, so I bounced off it and pulled a big wheelie,” Timms said. “When I saw Jeff go to slide as hard as he did, I knew that wasn’t going to end well, so I was ready to diamond the corner just in case, and thankfully, that was the right decision.”
Westbrook’s third podium in as many races, the No. 47x, was followed by J.J. Hickle, who had to pass most of the field twice after going to the work area on lap two.
The finish:
Feature (30 Laps): 1. 5T-Ryan Timms[8]; 2. 47X-Dylan Westbrook[9]; 3. 63-JJ Hickle[21]; 4. 91A-Ernie Ainsworth[4]; 5. G6-Cody Gardner[20]; 6. 95-Matt Covington[10]; 7. 67-Hayden Martin[11]; 8. 91T-Tyler Thomas[18]; 9. 3G-Paxton Gregory[15]; 10. 94-Jeff Swindell[1]; 11. 52-Blake Hahn[12]; 12. 13-Chase Howard[5]; 13. 17B-Ryan Bickett[16]; 14. 91-Zach Pringle[17]; 15. 26-Marshall Skinner[2]; 16. 1X-Tim Crawley[13]; 17. 19-Colby Thornhill[19]; 18. 187-Landon Crawley[25]; 19. 1-Brenham Crouch[14]; 20. 10P-Dylan Postier[22]; 21. 28-Scott Bogucki[6]; 22. 3-Howard Moore[7]; 23. 47-Dale Howard[3]; 24. 77X-Greg Hamilton[23]; 25. 88-Travis Reber[24]