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Adams goes wire to wire for East Bay ASCS win
SCOTT LOCKWOOD
Floridashorttrackreport.com
GIBSONTON - Although it was a rather cool night in the Tampa Bay area, an
evening of hot racing action awaited race fans at East Bay Raceway Park Friday
on the first night of Fall Brawl.
The 360 sprints of the O’Reilly American Sprint Car Series, Rebel Region, were the
featured event of the evening as they were competing in their penultimate event of
their season. In the first of their three lap heat races, Gavin Thomas won by over a
half a lap over Bryn Gohn, with Samantha Taylor finishing third. Matt Tiffany, who
won a 360 feature at East Bay last month, took the second heat while Kenny
Adams showed a sign of things to come in taking the third heat.
In the dash race to determine the top part of the starting lineup for the feature,
Gohn held off Adams for the win in a five-lap shootout. Tiffany was third. Dakotah
Stephens took home the win in the last chance race.
The feature race saw the family duo of Gohn and Adams sharing the front row in
their nearly identically painted cars. As the green flag fell, Adams got by Gohn for
the lead and set sail, opening up a huge lead in just a few laps. The advantage
was erased when the caution fell for Rebel Region points leader T.J. Winegardner’
s accident in turn 1. The car made contact with the outside retaining wall, but was
able to continue, which was a must for Winegardner since he was nursing a 30-
point lead in the standings.
Adams led the field on the restart, but Greg Leonard was clearly on the on the
move. As traffic became a factor at about the halfway point of the race, Leonard
got by Gohn first then got into second after passing Tiffany on lap 15. Leonard
appeared to have the faster car in traffic, and found himself right on the leader’s
tail on lap 19.
As the leaders came out of turn two on lap 20, Leonard used an inside move to
take the lead away from Adams. Unfortunately for Leonard, Thomas rolled to a
stop in turn 3 to bring out the yellow - resetting the field to the previous lap, thus
putting Adams back in the lead.
Adams got a great jump on Leonard on the restart, but another caution quickly
came out when Steven Darvalies spun coming out of turn 2. Leonard couldn’t
capitalize on the final restart, as Adams used the clean air to his advantage and
cruised to the victory.
“We had a really good starting position, as the outside was the place to be,” Adams
said. “When we got in lapped traffic, that was a tough deal. Greg got around us,
then we got back around him and then he got back around us good and we were
really going to have to race our way by him. Then that caution came out and put
us back in front. All we had to do then was run some clean laps in those last five
laps. It’s pretty hard to pass here unless you get some clean laps - which we did
and we were really happy about that.”
Leonard finished second, while Tiffany ran a strong third. By coming back onto
the track after his accident, Winegardner kept his points lead and will take a 32
point advantage over Brian Thomas into Saturday’s finale.
In other action at East Bay Friday night, Matt Haynes took home the feature win in
the Outlaw 4 division, Dale Kelley won an exciting open-wheel modified feature,
and Jim Young, coming down to East Bay to escape the winter weather in his home
state of Pennsylvania, won a crash filled mini-sprint feature
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