LAKE CITY, Mich. (Aug. 26) — Shane Clanton of Zebulon, Ga., pulled off some late-race dramatics in Saturday night’s Keyser’s Great Lakes Shootout opener at Merritt Speedway — over his traveling partner, no less.
Waiting until the last possible moment to make his move, Clanton surged ahead of race-long pacesetter Chris Madden of Gray Court, S.C., off turn two on the final circuit and won a drag race off the fourth corner to capture the 30-lap feature that kicked off a two-race World of Outlaws Craftsman Late Model Series weekend at the quarter-mile oval.
Clanton, who turns 42 on Aug. 29, earned $6,000 for his fifth WoO triumph of 2017 and first-ever at Merritt. It was his 42nd career WoO checkered flag, tying him with Billy Moyer of Batesville, Ark., for third on the national tour’s all-time win list.
The 2015 WoO champion crossed the finish line with a narrow victory margin of 0.182 of a second over Madden, a 42-year-old veteran who has grown closer to Clanton during what has been his first season as a regular on the circuit. The pair have caravanned from track-to-track and both spent the days between the Aug. 20 WoO event at Eriez Speedway in Hammett, Pa., and the Merritt twinbill working on their cars at the Warren, Pa., shop of his Clanton’s father-in-law and car owner Ron Davies.
Clanton’s connection to Madden added some extra luster to their Merritt battle, which saw the third-starting Clanton chase the polesitting Madden from lap one until finally finding traction on the high side of the track to push his Capital Race Car in front on the last lap.
“Me and Chris have been driving down the road together,” said Clanton, who entered the weekend with the same number of WoO wins this season as Madden (four). “When you can race your buddies as good and clean as we did and as fun as it was, it’s a good deal.”
Clanton was thankful for the lap-23 caution flag that flew when Chub Frank of Bear Lake, Pa., spun out of third place and then headed pitside with a flat right-front tire. It proved key to his ultimate success.
“Luckily that caution come out there and I could adjust my brakes and think about what I needed to do,” Clanton said. “Madden gave me the whole outside there — you can’t see no signals (from crewmen) here — and he’d never been here so he didn’t know you could get a run off the top off the racetrack a little bit off the front straightaway and back straightaway. That helped me get the win there.
“(Madden) evidently heard me (challenging), but I was in the fuel pretty hard down the front straightaway so hat’s off to him. He drove me clean as could be."
Losing to Clanton was the only thing that made Madden a bit better about his heartbreaking defeat. He appeared primed to win in his first career appearance at Merritt after securing a rare pole position start in WoO competition this season — it was just the third time he picked the pole in the 22 redraws he’s participated in — but he couldn’t quite complete the task.
After holding an edge of roughly 1 second over Clanton throughout the distance, Madden found his fellow Southerner breathing down his Longhorn car’s rear bumper shortly after the lap-23 caution. Clanton nearly assumed command as lap 29 was scored before lurching ahead of Madden moments later off turn two and racing back to the checkered flag first.
“I guess I just sat on the bottom too long and was a sitting duck there,” said Madden, who sits second in the WoO points standings with 10 events remaining on the 2017 schedule. “Obviously, (Clanton) knew where he needed to be not to run second. He had the preferred choice of line he needed to be in to make the pass.
“We just come up one lap short.”
Devin Moran, 22, of Dresden, Ohio — like Madden, a first-time visitor to Merritt — climbed forward from the sixth starting spot to finish third in Tye Twarog’s XR1 Rocket. He inherited the spot when Frank twirled on lap 23 but couldn’t seriously challenge the pacesetters over the final seven-lap sprint, finishing just shy of 1 second behind them.
“Man, I really wanted a double-filed restart there at the end,” said Moran, who overtook 12th-place finisher Tyler Erb of New Waverly, Texas, for fourth place in the WoO points standings. “I finally got rolling around that top pretty good and I got behind Chub, and then he chopped down on that lapped car and got spun out or whatever. I didn’t know how many laps were left so I was hoping it was a little more than 10 to go so I could get a double-file restart and maybe give Shane and Chris a run for their money.”
Runaway WoO points leader Brandon Sheppard of New Berlin, Ill., finished fourth, several car lengths behind Moran after starting eighth in the Rocket Chassis house car. It took him until lap 19 to crack the top five.
Morgan Bagley of Longview, Texas, started and finished fifth in his Black Diamond machine, though he ran just outside the top five for much of the distance until regaining fifth when Frank spun out of contention.
The race was slowed by just two caution flags, including a lap-seven incident that saw Jeep Van Wormer of Pinconning, Mich., driving a Todd Rosebrugh-owned Rocket No. 1r, spin in turn four and Eric Spangler of Lake City, Mich., catch a piece of Van Wormer’s car while passing. Both drivers went on to complete the 30-lap distance with the 18th-starting Spangler, who won last year’s Great Lakes Shootout opener for his first-ever WoO triumph, placing eighth and Van Wormer finishing 21st.
Notes: Clanton’s victory was his first on the WoO tour since July 14 at River Cities Speedway in Grand Forks, N.D. … Tyler Erb had to rely on a points provisional to start 23rd in the feature after sliding off the track while in a transfer spot in his heat. … Eric Wells of Hazard, Ky., switched to his second car after the machine he started the night in was felled by terminal engine trouble during hot laps. He rallied from the rear of his heat race to grab a transfer spot but finished a quiet 15th in the feature. … The Keyser’s Great Lakes Shootout concludes Sunday night with a $15,000-to-win WoO A-main.
