Peery Rules Southern Oregon

WHITE CITY, Ore. — Southern Oregon Speedway hosted the first of two nights of the Pacific Sport Mod Showdown on Friday night.

It was a big night for the Dusty’s Transmissions IMCA Northern Sport Mod,s which attracted 43 entries to the White City facility.

Ryan Peery took care of business in the Dusty’s Transmissions IMCA Northern Sport Mod main event. The only thing to slow him down was four stoppages throughout the feature.

It emphasized perfection on the restarts with all the yellows but not on lapped traffic due to the stop-and-go nature of the race. On the final green flag, the young Peery was kept company by Tanner Thomas with six laps remaining.

Peery kept a steady course as he went on to score his seventh main event victory of the season but his first at Southern Oregon Speedway and in KMJ Performance Oregon State competition. It is his first triumph since sweeping the Independence Day doubleheader at Diamond Mountain Speedway in Susanville, Calif. He is the third winner in five races at Southern Oregon in 2021.

Thomas was a respectable second with the third-place position credited to Brian Cooper. Travis Peery, the winner’s father, earned fourth, followed by fifth-finishing Chase Thomas.

In the World Famous Autos Sprint Car feature, Jake Wheeler was on rails. The Central Point standout seized control of the top spot on the opening start. The race went relatively incident-free throughout the course of the main event, but Wheeler did experience a brief scare. 

On lap 19, Jake got a little out of shape in the final set of turns and nearly got into the wall and upside down. He managed to force his mount back under control but, in the process, sacrificed the top place position.  As Wheeler tried to get back up to speed, Bailey Hibbard, also from Central Point, motored his way by, in the lead.

The two drivers would battle it out fiercely, with Hibbard and Wheeler getting in close proximity to each other in the first set of corners on lap twenty. Unfortunately, Hibbard got into the wall ending his bid for the win. Wheeler would be put back into the coveted top spot. There he would remain to win for the first time in 2021 at SOS and became the third different winner in as many races in the division.

The Mini Stocks made their 2021 debut at Southern Oregon Speedway. David Steele obtained the lead on the initial start. A total of three stoppages took place, all within the first ten circuits. Steele would be hunted down and overtaken by lap five by Ashtin Hedges. Hedges did not have any issues from there on out and was the first to the checkered flag.