By DAVID MILLER
Special to The Dispatch
Chad Thrash could have driven his 1C Super Late Model car even faster Saturday.
But he didn’t need to, even as Spencer Hughes battled him from the top-side for the final 10 laps of the Mississippi State Championship Challenge Series race at Magnolia Motor Speedway.
Thrash started eighth and first passed Hughes for the lead on lap 18, holding him off through lap-traffic for his first State Series win of the year. Thrash, who finished second in the State Series race last week at Whynot, has three podium finishes through four series races this year.
“The car was phenomenal after we made a couple of changes after the heat race,” Thrash said. “I was actually driving it slower than it needed to go – it could have gone a lot faster.”
Thrash stayed on the bottom of the track and quickly moved through the field, passing national racers Billy Moyer, Jr. and Tyler Erb – who has won two of four State Series races this year – before picking off Hughes.
“Right there about lap 10, I felt [the bottom] latching up, so I knew that would be the place for me,” Thrash said. “Luckily, [other drivers] didn’t do it. I just stayed down there and was able to pick them off.”
Hughes finished second after starting on the pole. He has another runner-up and an eighth-place finish to his credit in his first season with Henderson Motorsports. Hughes said that, though he ran the top for much of the race, it wasn’t as consistent of a line as he needed it to be.
“It kept going away a little bit,” Hughes said. “I never really ran the cushion … I was just up there scraping. There toward the end of the race, I was better than Chad through (turns) 3 and 4, but he could get me pretty good on Turn 2.
“It’s nothing to complain about – it’s our third race as a team, so we’re definitely getting a lot better.”
Hughes looked to have made the move of the race on lap 30 when lap traffic bogged down the race leaders. Hughes shot through the middle in turns 1 and 2, splitting Thrash and lap-car Shelby Sheedy to take the lead.
Hughes said he didn’t second-guess the move at the moment, in part because he knew he could, “make it clean.”
Thrash said he knew Hughes would pull it off by “the way he drove in there so hard.”
“It was streaking rubber on the bottom, so I wasn’t going to move,” Thrash said. “[Sheedy] finally slipped up and let me get up beside him, and I knew, once I cleared him, if Spencer didn’t come to the bottom, it was pretty much over with.”
Rick Rickman finished third and briefly held down second place. Rickman, who started seventh, said he feels good about his race program but hopes to improve qualifying numbers to turn a recent string of top 5s into wins.
“I’m having to race my way up too much,” said Rickman, who won the first Super Late Model race of the season at Magnolia. “We can be a lot better.”
Moyer finished fourth, while Neil Baggett took fifth.
Hughes plans to race at the Bad Boy 98 at Batesville, Arkansas next week.
Ellis dominates NeSmith race
Evan Ellis started from the pole and overcame a brief exchange with Todd Robinson to win his first NeSmith Late Model race of the season.
Ellis opened with a big lead, got passed by Robinson near lap 12, and regained the lead two laps later, leaving the higher line he’d been using to get underneath Robinson. Ellis put several seconds on the field before Robinson closed the gap at the checkered flag.
Robinson finished second, while Justin McRee, Randall Beckwith and Shannon Lee rounded out the top 5.
The win marked Ellis’ third race in a Club 29 car that he debuted at the Possum Town Grand Prix at the end of 2017, where he finished third in the $10,000-to-win, 100-lap race.
“It’s been fast since Day 1 – I’ve just had to test and try a couple of things,” Ellis said.
Ellis said he’s also changed his driving style to better fit the car’s handling.
“From previous cars, you didn’t have to hustle the car as much … it was more finesse,” he said. “This car is just a more hard-charging, get-up-on-the-wheel and drive it. The harder you run it, the more it bites.”
In other race action, Nick Thrash won the Late Model Sportsman feature. Jamie Pickard, Tody Ratcliff, Aaron Fitzhugh and Allen Simmons rounded out the top 5.
Dewayne Estes won the Street Stock feature. Lee Ray, Justin McRee, Kyle Livngood and Bryan Fortner rounded out the top 5.
John Beard won the Factory Stock feature. Cody Chism, Aidan Fletcher, Blaine Davis and Steve Riley 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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