By DAVID MILLER
Special to The Dispatch
Derek Hagar couldn’t make it through a race without tearing up his car.
The USCS Sprint Car driver made competed in his own car for the first time in 2017 Friday at Hattiesburg, where he was running third before flipping his car and exiting the race.
Heading into Saturday, the Marion, Arkansas native would carry added motivation, both from the wreck Friday and his previous victories at the track.
Hagar dominated his heat race, started on the pole of the feature and led all 30 laps for his first victory of the 2017 season.
“Tonight was a good night to overcome the cost we had last night of tearing the car up,” Hagar said. “It pretty much made this weekend a wash. We wanted to win both nights, had the car to do it both nights.”
Hagar opened up a five-second lead on the field after 20 green-flag laps.
“We tried it out around the top and it started drying out a little bit after the heat races,” Hagar said. “I was keeping an eye on it … I knew the late models and other classes were going to abuse the bottom and blow it off.
“Tim Crawley (who finished fifth) showed me his nose two or three times on the high side, and it was like someone flipped a switch – the race track got grip along the bottom and the car got really good. We just started picking lap cars off one at a time, trying to buy our time, not rush it or get into it with them because the race track had gotten into one groove.”
A caution on lap 27 gave Terry Gray a shot at passing Hagar, but with an open track Hagar immediately pulled away and cruised to victory.
Gray finished second, while Danny Smith, Morgan Turpen and Crawley rounded out the top 5.
Former NASCAR Cup champion Tony Stewart started third but pulled off late in the race and finished 23rd in his first race at Magnolia. Stewart finished third at Hattiesburg.
“We started out not very good,” said Turpen, who won Friday at Hattiesburg. “It was just pretty wet here, and we couldn’t get a hold of the car. But once it got slick, it was a different story. We got all those cars passed before it rubbered down and was able to garnish a fourth after starting eighth. It was a good night.”
Turpen, a former USCS Champion and Rookie of the Year, is working as an English teacher in Germantown, Tennessee and will run a limited sprint car schedule this year. She said she hopes to land a job that will allow her to dedicate more time to racing.
Seratt bests Magnolia regulars for Modifieds win
Preston Seratt picked a good time to pounce.
The No. 29S Sprint Modified driver used a caution on lap 16 to overtake three cars to win the feature. For much of the first 15 laps, Spencer Hughes and Ashley Newman, who compete regularly at Magnolia in NeSmith Crates and Street Stocks, traded the lead position, riding the high-side of the track, and at one point, opening a seven-second lead on the field.
Seratt overtook both on the cushion of the track and never looked back.
Newman and Hughes would finish second and third, respectively. Greg Welch and Craig Vaughn finished fourth and fifth.
Billy Franklin donates winnings to track medic
Billy Franklin knows the crushing feeling brain cancer can deal to a family.
His grandmother, Kathleen, died shortly after having what the family thought was a heat stroke in the summer of 1998. It turned out to be brain cancer.
“My grandparents raised me and my brother when my dad would be gone for work,” Franklin said. “We all lived together. When she died, we lost our mother.”
So when he heard Magnolia owner Johnny Stokes mention the passing of Nina Nonamaker, wife of long-time track medic George Nonamaker, Jr., during the drivers’ meeting Saturday, he felt compelled to help. Nina died Feb. 27 after a bout with brain cancer. The couple have two children.
Franklin donated his winnings from both the Crate and Super Late Model races to help bring the total donation total Saturday to $3,070.
In other race action:
n Brett White won the Super Late Model feature. Chad Thrash, Buddy George, Billy Franklin and Austin Arnold rounded out the top 5.
n Spencer Hughes won the Street Stocks feature. Jay Burchfield, Lee Ray, TK King and Eddie Rickman rounded out the top 5.
n Logan Lux won the Factory Stocks feature. John Johnson, John Beard, Brandon Whitley and Scooter Ware founded out the top 5.
n Justin McCree won the NeSmith Late Models feature. Chase Washington, Hunter Carroll, Tyler Burgess and Kyle Shaw rounded out the top 5.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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