|
FRANKLIN, PA – Sept. 3, 2006 – Chub Frank
knew he stole a victory in Sunday night’s 50-lap World of Outlaws Late
Model Series event at Tri-City Speedway.
“We really didn’t have the winning car tonight, but it don’t matter,” said
the driver affectionately known as ‘Chubzilla.’ “They paid me the money.”
Frank, 44, of Bear Lake, Pa., pocketed the evening’s $10,000 top prize
after pulling off a dramatic, go-for-broke pass of defending WoO LMS
champion Billy Moyer on the final lap.
The local favorite’s triumph came at the expense of Batesville, Ark.’s
Moyer, who absorbed a crushing defeat in the rough-and-tumble main.
Contact with Frank as the leaders rounded turn four with the checkered
flag waving caused Moyer to spin onto the track’s inside berm, and only a
risky maneuver allowed him to pull back into the pack and cross the finish
line in eighth place.
Josh Richards of Shinnston, W.Va., narrowly avoided Moyer’s spinning car
and finished second, 1.769 seconds behind Frank.
Robbie Blair of Titusville, Pa., who was the track champion when Tri-City
last ran dirt Late Models regularly in 1997, finished third, followed by
18th-starter Steve Francis of Ashland, Ky., and Darrell Lanigan of Union,
Ky., who rallied after pitting to change a blown left-rear tire on lap 16.
Frank, whose shop is barely a half-hour’s drive from the half-mile oval,
entered a brand-new Lester Buildings Rocket No. 1* in the opening round of
the two-night Oil Region Labor Day Weekend Classic. The car performed
solidly, if not spectacularly, in its debut.
“I really didn’t think my car was all that good,” said Frank, who plans to
run the machine in the Sept. 8-9 UMP-sanctioned World 100 at Eldora
Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio. “I was having trouble at both ends of the
track.”
But as the main neared its conclusion, Frank found himself closing in on
Moyer, who had inherited the top spot when race-long pacesetter Rick
Eckert of York, Pa., finally succumbed to a leaking oil line on lap 30.
Frank, who started from the pole position but slipped back as far as
third, prepared to make a final bid for the win when Moyer lost some
momentum upon approaching the slower car driven by Bob Salathe of Bedford,
Pa., on the last lap.
“Those last five laps (Moyer) started slowing down, and that just gave me
a chance,” said Frank. “On the last lap I was thinking, If he just leaves
me that top (in turn three), I’m gonna hammer it in one time around there
on the cushion and hope it don’t flip over.”
Throwing caution to the wind, Frank tossed his car to the outside of the
track and it stuck. He emerged with the lead off turn four and flashed to
his third WoO LMS victory of the season.
“I never cracked the throttle – I just mashed it,” described Frank. “I
just ran ‘er in there wide-open.
“I don’t know if I hit the wall, but it was damn close as I was coming
across the finish line. I wasn’t liftin’ until I got there.
“It sure was exciting for me,” he added of his heroics, “because I thought
I was gonna wreck.”
Frank felt the contact with Moyer, but he didn’t realize Moyer had spun
out of contention.
“He slid up and hit me right there in front of my left-rear tire,” said
Frank, who recorded his seventh career win on the WoO LMS. “He’d been
sliding up across the track and coming off the (fourth) corner high, and I
think that’s what he was trying to do on the last lap.
“But I just tried to run ‘er in there wide-open and get beside him before
he got a chance to get up there, so he probably didn’t even know I was up
there until it was too late.”
Moyer, 48, didn’t see the race’s deciding moment in quite the same manner.
“There were lapped cars in the way and no lay-over flag (from the starter)
to get them to move,” said a dejected Moyer, whose pace was slowed over
the final five laps by a deflating right-rear tire. “And Chub didn’t lift
any for sure. He turned me on around. When I felt him hit me, I knew he
was there.”
Moyer’s Rayburn car sustained significant front-end damage, but that
didn’t stop him from completing the final yards of the feature. After
spinning to a stop inside of turn four with his nose pointed toward the
outside wall, Moyer stepped on the gas and lurched forward when he thought
he saw some daylight.
Moyer pulled directly in front of WoO LMS points leader Tim McCreadie of
Watertown, N.Y., who was attempting to hold off Lanigan and Shane Clanton
of Locust Grove, Ga., for a sixth-place finish. McCreadie got on the
brakes hard, but contact from Moyer squeezed him into the outside wall.
McCreadie kept his car straight and beat Moyer to the finish line, but
Lanigan and Clanton drove by to leave him with a seventh-place finish.
“I have no idea what happened,” McCreadie said of his close call on the
last lap. “I was shocked when Billy came up the track in front of me. It
scared me. It’s not very safe to do that.
“It cost me some spots and some money.”
But it didn’t cost McCreadie his points lead. He entered the show with a
42-point edge over Moyer, and he ended the night with the same lead over
Clanton, who grabbed second in the standings after coming back from a
lap-20 spin in turn two to finish sixth.
The driver with the best seat in the house for the Frank/Moyer scrape was
Richards, the 18-year-old sensation who was coming off a victory in the
Aug. 26 WoO LMS event at Columbus (Miss.) Speedway.
“I started the last lap running third and thinking, We got a pretty good
finish here,” said Richards, who started fifth in his father Mark’s Rocket
Chassis house car. “Then I rolled into three and saw Chub go out there and
go for the win.
“I think Moyer just turned and gassed up when Chub got alongside him, and
then got himself around. Chub was already up against the cushion as far as
he could go. It was just hard racing.
“When Moyer was going around I moved up and missed him, and I thought,
This is gonna be bad for the rest of the guys.”
Eight caution flags slowed the event, which was run on a clay surface left
spongy and very fast by heavy rain from the remnants of Tropical Storm
Ernesto. The deluge forced speedway officials to call off Saturday night’s
program and reset the weekend doubleheader for Sunday and Monday nights.
Sunday’s weather remained unstable, with several quick showers and
episodes of light mist hampering track-prep efforts. The start of on-track
competition was delayed roughly an hour from the night’s scheduled
starting time of 6 o’clock.
Blair set a new track record during the 45-car time-trial session, turning
a lap of 17.830 seconds. He beat Todd Andrews’s mark of 17.983 seconds,
established in 2004.
Heat winners were Blair, Moyer, Frank and Eckert. Brent Rhebergen of
Clymer, N.Y., and Francis captured the B-Mains, and Frank won the pole
dash.
The second round of the WoO LMS Oil Region Labor Day Weekend Classic at
Tri-City hits the track today (Mon., Sept. 4) at 4 o’clock. |
