CONNEAUT, Ohio – Kyle Bronson took advantage of race leader Jimmy Owens’ misfortune on lap 45 and then went on to win his third Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series race Friday night at Raceway 7.
The event was the biggest dirt late model race in 16 years at the Northeast Ohio facility and was held in front of a packed grandstand.
The A-main saw a dramatic ending, as Owens’ dominance of the race was snapped after he slowed suddenly with four laps to go, pulling pitside and ending his bid for a fifth series victory of the season.
Bronson led the first nine laps of the race before yielding the lead to Owens. Upon inheriting the lead back from Owens’ misfortune, the Florida native then quickly pulled away from second-running Tim McCreadie to win the event.
With his podium finish, McCreadie maintains second place in the point standings after coming home in the runner-up position. He was followed to the stripe by Josh Richards, Hudson O’Neal and Jonathan Davenport.
Bronson was several car lengths behind Owens when the three-time series Champion slowed suddenly and dropped out of the race.
“These races are so tough to win. I feel terrible for Jimmy; he was the class of the field tonight,” said Bronson in victory lane. “He was gone and in another zip code. Jimmy and his guys have been helping me a lot lately. I hate it for those guys as well. I knew when they said over race control McCreadie was second, that I just needed to hit my marks and take care of my race car, because he would race me clean.”
In McCreadie’s post-race interview, he was grateful for another podium finish.
“Once the track cleaned off in the middle, we couldn’t maneuver anymore. This is one of the smoothest tracks we have been on in a while,” McCreadie said. “We brought the car home in one piece, so we should be ready for tomorrow at Pittsburgh. We finished second in our only other appearance here before (in a big-block modified), so I guess that’s the best we could do tonight as well.”
With his third-place finish, Richards managed to keep himself just behind McCreadie in the point standings.
“I thought we were going to be better than we were tonight. The car was too loose at the start of the race,” said Richards. “We had a third or fourth place car, but as the race wore on, we got better. When we got some heat in the right rear tire, we closed on McCreadie, but we didn’t have enough to pass him. We have had a lot of speed near the end of a lot of races this season, but we have just some bad breaks.
“The last time I was here John Gill was driving for my dad (Mark Richards), so it’s kind of neat to finally race here.”
The finish: