The Solid Rock Carriers CARS tour rolled into Fredericksburg Saturday night for the Virginia Is For Lovers 125 and Conner Hall was able to outlast seven cautions to pick up his second win of the year.
Local favorite Mason Diaz won the pole for the feature by posting a time of 15.012 to Landon Pembelton’s 15.052 and current points leader Carson Kvapil’s 15.089. Hall posted a 15.123 to take the fourth qualifying spot.
Diaz took the green and was able to slightly pull away from the field until the first caution came out only 20 laps in. On the restart, Diaz was able to stake himself out to as lightly larger lead and the field fell into a single file line behind him. 24 laps later, Conner Jones ended up facing the wrong way on the outside wall in turn one brining out the second caution, and only red flag of the night.
Once the field went back to green, Pembelton started looking to put himself out front by peaking under Diaz for the lead. Diaz was able to hold him off the and the two went back to single file until the next caution with 78 to go.
The restart had Diaz and Pembelton running door to door for the first four laps back under green and Pembelton was able to wrestle the lead away from Diaz with 72 laps left. Once the pass was complete, they went back to a single file running order which allowed him to open almost a two second lead on Hall who had also passed Diaz to move into second, when the fourth caution flew for Parker Eatman cutting a tire going into turns one and two with 54 to go.
Six laps after the restart, Hall passed Pembelton, and the only thing left to decide was the finishing order behind him. Three more cautions helped to shake up the field and Carson Kavpil and Chad McCumbee, who sat one two in the points respectively, were both part of later cautions.
Hall navigated the last three cautions perfectly and was able to drive away for his second win of the year and make up some points in the standings with seven feature races left. Rounding out the top five were Jacob Heafner, Pembelton, Jonathan Shafer, and Jonathan Findley. The next race for the touring series is July 30th at Hickory Motor Speedway.
Saturday night also saw twin features for the Virginia Racer Late Model division where Eddie Slagle was able to take both checkered flags in opposite fashion. Slagle took the pole over Alex Brock by a mere .018, but the invert forced him to roll off fourth. Only five laps in, Slagle had driven to the point and would stay there the rest of the feature. Mike Ganoe came home second and Brock third.
In the second feature it would take Slagle 28 laps to assume the lead. Ganoe was tracking him down when a caution on the last lap brought out the yellow and checkered at the same time giving the win to Slagle, followed by Ganoe and Richard Storm third.
In other action the INEX Legends ran twin features with Weedy Weddell taking feature number one and Conner Weddell taking the win in feature number on a last lap pass. The Bandos came to town for a 15-lap feature and Brian Rundstrom had a strong run to take the checkered flag. Cameron Ruggles bolstered his points lead by winning his Fifth feature on the year and his fourth in a row, and John Andrews got back to his winning ways picking up his fourth win of the year in the Any Car 8-cylinder division.
This coming Saturday the Southern Ground Pounders will invade Dominion for it’s first of two features this year. Also in action will be the Geico Late Models for twin 60 laps races, the Virginia Modifieds and the Any Car division. Gates open at 5 and the green flag drops at 7.
