Owens Rules the World
ROSSBURG, Ohio — Jimmy Owens now rules the World! After topping a stellar 203 car field with a time of 15.690 seconds around Eldora Speedway’s famed one-half mile clay oval, the Newport, TN veteran captured the biggest win of his career with Sunday’s $40,000 World 100 victory.
Scheduled for Saturday night, the racing action was shifted to Sunday afternoon when persistent and heavy rains inundated the area and turned the grounds into quagmire.
Undaunted, the Eldora officials used their back-up plan the event went without a hitch on Sunday.
The change in track conditions from night to day created a flurry of activity among the pit crews; with the end result being top notch racing.
After the six qualifying heat races and two B-Mains set the 28-car starting field, Shannon Buckingham found himself starting on the pole, with three-time World 100 winner Scott Bloomquist outside of him. As expected, Bloomquist shot into the lead at the dropping of the green flag, while Buckingham held down second.
Only three laps into the event, Josh Richards got sideways in turn two and the resulting melee collected Steve Shaver and Brad Neat. Shaver’s shot at the World ended at the point, while Richards and Neat were able to continue.
On the restart, it remained Bloomquist and Buckingham up front, while Owens had advanced from his 6th starting slot to third. Randy Korte and Wayne Chinn rounded out the top five at this point.
It only took Owens two laps to wrestle second away from Buckingham, and he then set his sights on Bloomquist and the lead. He slowly closed the gap, and by lap eight he had closed to within inches of Bloomquist’s bumper. As the field came down to complete lap ten, it was Owens in the lead and a surprised Bloomquist back in second.
While that pair fought their battle, former World 100 winner Steve Francis was entering the fray. After starting 10th, Francis clawed his way to the front, and was running third. Another quiet mover was Shannon Babb, who started 18th and when Owens made his move for the lead, Babb was up to 9th.
Francis let it be known that his drive forward was no fluke. On lap 16 he shot past Bloomquist and two laps later took the lead away from Owens At that point Babb was up to fifth and the massive crowd was in awe with the daytime action.
By lap 32, the front runners began entering lapped traffic; however it appeared to have no affect on Francis’ determination to captured another globed traffic. As Francis and Owens proceeded forward, the fans noticed that Bloomquist was starting to fall off the pace a bit. On lap 36 Darrell Lanigan, who had advanced from14th got by Bloomquist to take third spot and by lap 40, Bloomquist was ranning back in 10th spot.
With his tires obviously going away, Bloomquist uncharacteristically looped it on the front stretch on lap 54. A quick charge to the pits got him back on the track before the green flag reappeared, albeit at the back of the pack.
Francis resumed his lead at the restart, with Owens, Lanigan, Chinn and Babb behind him.
From this point forward the race went non-stop, and tire conservation came into play.
Near the three-quarter mark, Owens regained life and began to decrease the distance between himself and Francis. Lap by lap, Owens inched forward and with the ensuing checkered flag nearly in sight, he regained control of the field on lap 87. The adrenalin rush of climbing onto Eldora’s hallowed stage was enough to keep him in front and the normally quiet Owens erupted with joy as he climbed out of his car to accept the famed World 100 globed trophy.
Francis graciously accepted second place, while Lanigan had another strong Eldora run to finish third. Wayne Chinn wowed the crowd with an impressive fourth place finish, while last year’s fan pleaser Jeep VanWormer didn’t let them down this year. Using his patented rim riding, wall banging style, VanWormer came all the way from 23rd to take home a top five finish.
Babb finished sixth while Bloomquist wasn’t able to get the break of a caution flag to tighten the field, yet came back up to sixth.
RESULTS
2003 cars fast time: Jimmy Owens 15.690
- Jimmy Owens
- Steve Francis
- Darrell Lanigan
- Wayne Chinn
- Jeep VanWormer
- Shannon Babb
- Scott Bloomquist
- Wendell Wallace
- Donnie Moran
- Randy Korte
- Chris Madden
- Billy Drak
- Dennis Erb
- Michael England
- Brady Smith
- Shannon Buckingham
- Jason Feger
- Mike Marlar
- Josh Richards
- Rick Eckert
- Matt Miller
- Dan Schlieper
- Ray Cook,
- Brad Neat
- Randy Weaver
- Brian Birkhofer
- Steve Shaver
- Vic Hill
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