CONCORD, N.C. — In his fourth trip to The Dirt Track at Charlotte for the World Short Track Championship, Franklinton, N.C., driver Cody Keith scored his maiden win in the event in the COMP Cams Monster Mini Stock division.
“It means the world, this is always the one you want to win,” Keith said in Victory Lane. “My guys traveled with me up here to see if we could get it done and we did, so it’s pretty cool.”
Keith’s Heat Race win on Friday night netted him the sixth starting spot, while Kevin Cooper and Daniel Coffey shared the front row. Cooper grabbed the early lead through the opening set of corners, but a pileup in Turn 2 behind him reset the field before he could break away.
The ensuing restart was a mirror image of the original start, with Cooper taking the top spot and Coffey sliding into second behind him, but this time they were able to put some laps on the board. Coffey’s time in second didn’t last long though, as contact with Brad Hamm in Turn 4 caused him to fall back several spots and out of the lead group.
That gave the runner-up spot to Matt Gilbert, but before he could get comfortable, a hard-charging Keith made it to Gilbert’s back bumper just past halfway. Keith made his move with six to go and instantly went to work on chasing down Cooper, and with five to go, he ripped around the outside of Turns 3 and 4 before clearing him for the lead in Turn 1.
From that point forward, Keith was off like a rocket, crossing the stripe over a second ahead of the pack at the end of 15 laps.
Behind him, Gilbert wrestled second away from Cooper in the closing stages of the race by squeezing between Cooper and the infield tractor tires in Turns 3 and 4 with three to go. It was his third-straight podium in the World Short Track Championship following a win in 2022 and a third-place finish a year ago.
“I kind of wish we would have run 25 laps, we may have been able to have something there at the end,” Gilbert said. “All in all, it was a good race, just kind of wish we had a little more laps to kind of show what we had.”
Cooper entered the event as the defending Mini Stock winner and looked to be in position to go back-to-back, but said an ill-handling race car forced him to settle for third.
“We had a pretty good weekend,” Cooper said. “We won the Heat Race, drew the one on the redraw, started on the pole of the main event. Just got real free there at the end and got passed.”
The finish:
Feature (15 Laps): 1. 51-Cody Keith[6]; 2. 117-Matt Gilbert[3]; 3. X-Kevin Cooper[1]; 4. 98-Brad Hamm[4]; 5. 121-JR Warren[7]; 6. 99-Daniel Coffey[2]; 7. M6-Jamie Massey[14]; 8. 19-Justyn Jacobs[15]; 9. 1-Connor Keaton[17]; 10. 15L-Zach Lankford[22]; 11. 8-Dustin Bolin[16]; 12. H3-Harley Holden[20]; 13. 118-Ronald Arch[10]; 14. 37-Ben Burnett[26]; 15. 2-Johnny Raines[18]; 16. 56F-Nick Fulcher[25]; 17. 12-Pete Brew[23]; 18. 69-Billy Cline[12]; 19. 50-Everette Dunlap[11]; 20. 5-Jack Jordan[27]; 21. 9-Travis Mosley[9]; 22. 8J-Tyler Johnson[21]; 23. D7-Dakota Whitley[28]; 24. 10-Logan Richey[5]; 25. 44-Nick Broome[8]; 26. 03-Damien Bryant[19]; 27. 212-Greg Brew[24]; 28. 96X-Tyler Riddle[13]