Lawrence wins late model title
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By ED TURNER
For the News & Messenger
Published: September 21, 2008
It was Lawrence’s 13th win of the season. His victory in the 200-lap event also gave him his 19th top two of the year.
“It feels real good to win the championship and ‘The Big One,’” Lawrence said. “My biggest challenge was deciding which strategy to take to try to win tonight.”
Lawrence chose the traditional path and saved his tires in the first half, wanting to be in the top five at the end of the first segment. For most of the first 100-laps, he stayed in seventh. In lap 81, he got around Kevin Hall for fourth and finished the segment there.
In the second half, Lawrence followed Doug Liberman around Mike Arnold for second in lap 133. In lap 141, Lawrence powered by Liberman in turn two and took the lead.
Liberman, who started fourth, was second. It was his best finish in a 200-lapper.
“Getting second tops off the whole year,” he said. “Lawrence kind of jumped me there while I was going slow. But I didn’t have much left at the end.”
Ray Terczak ran his first race since July and took home third. He started sixth and was in seventh at the start of the second segment. In lap 185, Terczak, who was running fourth, took over third after Arnold looped his car because of a flat.
Jason Shultz notched a fourth. Shultz started 11th and got around Dave Moon in lap 191 for the spot.
“I let attrition take its part today,” said Shultz, a student at the University of North Carolina. “I didn’t have too good of a car.
“Definitely, I was just riding for a long time, just letting the race settle.”
Moon snagged his best finish of the year with fifth. He started eighth and rode in 10th in the first half. In the last segment, Moon made it to seventh by lap 160 and moved up to fifth after Adam Brenner and Les Miranda got together with less than 30 to go.
Former champion Mike Darne, who started fourth, came in sixth. Darne finished fifth in the first segment but was slowed by engine problems after lap 116. “Sixth is not too bad considering the problems we had,” he said.
In U-Cars, Billy Ingle gave himself a birthday gift by barreling to his seventh victory of the year. Ingle started on the pole and never looked back, taking almost half a straightaway lead at one point.
“This is a great present, especially with Bryan [Fox] on my bumper,” Ingle said. “Luckily, I had track posi-tion tonight, because he’s a little faster.”
Fox, who started sixth, took second after passing Greg Sites in lap 10. “I had nothing for Billy tonight,” Fox said. “He had a whole lot better car than I did.”
Fox leads Ingle in the points’ race by eight markers, with the final race next Saturday.
Sites was third and Mark Taylor fourth.
In the Virginia Sprint Car series, Tony Harris won the 25-lap contest. Harris started second and got around Chris Ware in lap 21. Jerald Harris, Tony’s brother, was second. Satch Worley was third.
“Last time here, I was second to Gerald’s first,” Tony Harris said. “We reversed the order tonight.”
Late Model results:
Willard Lawrence
Doug Liberman
Ray Terczak
Jason Shultz
Dave Moon
Mike Darne
Les Miranda
Don Bauer
Bob Harmon
Kevin Hall
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