Owosso, MI – Out of thirty cars that were placed on the entry list on Saturday night, the Lebanon, TN Rackly/WAR Team with driver Dawson Sutton managed to put together an almost picture-perfect day and cash in $15,000 at the conclusion of the 12th Annual Masters of the Pros 185 for the JEGS/CRA All-Stars Tour Presented by Chevrolet Performance.
After being fastest in both practice sessions on Saturday afternoon, Sutton qualified his No.26 inside the top 8 redraw and rolled off fifth for 185 laps. Blake Rowe and Carson Brown led the field to green with Rowe jumping out to the early race lead. A multitude of cautions in the first half of the race couldn’t keep Rowe from pacing the field until lap 46 when Sutton managed ot take the lead for a pair of laps.
A caution on lap 63 led to a devastating mistake from the No.71 camp when both the driver and the spotter were on the radio at the same time resulting in Rowe missing the information that they were coming to the choose on the front stretch. Rowe would have had to restart on the outside and instinctively tried to jump down to the bottom of row one for his start. However, that is considered a “Choose Rule Violation” for changing lanes after the choose – Rowe was forced to restart at the tail-end of the longest line handing things over to Sutton once again.
After a round of pit stops, Brandon Varney put his No.61 at the front for several rotations until the cycle put Sutton back at the point on lap 98. Rowe had completed the comeback by lap 176 but he brought Chase Burda with him through the field, with two laps to go. Burda bumped Rowe in turn two to get him out of the groove and take the lead down the backstretch; then in turn four, Rowe drove into Burda’s left rear and turned him around in front of the field clipping Barrett Polhemus. Both the No.71 and the No.18 were sent to the tail for the incident putting Polhemus at the front of the field for the first time.
On the restart, Polhemus held his own with a damaged car on the inside of Sutton. With the white flag in the air, Sutton began to get a run to Polhemus’ outside – meanwhile, Billy VanMeter dove to the inside of both drivers trying to give himself a shot at the win. The threesome pushed high in turn four and the outside-most car of Sutton got back to the line first to collect the win and the $15,000. VanMeter and Polhemus rounded out the podium with Steve Dorer and Chris Shannon completing the top five.
The next event for the JEGS/CRA All-Stars Tour is Friday, August 23rd for the one and only trip to Birch Run Speedway for the 2024 season. For more information on the JEGS Tour or Champion Racing Association, log onto CRA-Racing.com. Find CRA: Champion Racing Association on Facebook and follow @CRARacing on Twitter.
