Francis Breaks Out Of Victory Drought In Alltel Ohio Speedweek Opener At Muskingum County Speedway
If you're new here, thanks for coming by. You may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
By Kevin Kovac, WoO LMS P.R. Director
Zanesville, OH - Steve Francis let out a giant sigh of relief after capturing the Alltel Ohio Speedweek opener on Thursday night at Muskingum County Speedway.
The ‘Pepsi 40’ victory, after all, snapped a 19-race winless streak for the defending World of Outlaws Late Model Series champion.
“We needed this like nobody knows,” said Francis, whose only previous WoO LMS triumph this season came on April 19 in the Circle K Colossal 100 at The Dirt Track @ Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C. “We’ve just been off for awhile – making dumb decisions, missing stupid things. We finally were able to put it all together tonight.”
Francis, 40, of Ashland, Ky., was the class of the field in the first-ever WoO LMS event at Ronnie Moran’s three-eighths-mile oval. He steered his Dale Beitler-owned Reliable Painting/Valvoline Rocket car forward from the fifth starting spot to take the lead from Earl Pearson Jr. of Jacksonville, Fla., on lap 14 and was never threatened thereafter.
“Tires could’ve been an advantage for us tonight – they definitely performed flawless, there’s no doubt about that,” he added, singling out his American Racer rubber. “But more than anything, we really got our car good again. It was kind of a combination of the two – when the two come together, it’s a good night.”
Pearson settled for a third-place finish after leading laps 12-13 in NASCAR Sprint Cup star Bobby Labonte’s LifeLong Locks MasterSbilt car. He went with a “safer” Hoosier Tire choice than Francis and Fuller and couldn’t quite match their speed.
WoO LMS points leader Darrell Lanigan of Union, Ky., advanced from the seventh starting spot to take fourth in the GottaRace.com Rocket – his 17th top-five finish in the last 18 tour events – and polesitter Steve Shaver of Vienna, W.Va., placed fifth in the Cosgrove Racing Rocket. Lanigan overtook Shaver for fourth with just four laps remaining and extended his points lead to 120 points over 13th-place finisher Josh Richards of Shinnston, W.Va., who started fourth but faded dramatically as a result of an incorrect tire-compound choice.
Leave a Reply