![Opening-night racing on March 11 will feature the Pure Stock, Street Stock, Vintage, Sportsman 602 Late Models and Open Wheel Modified divisions. Pretty car awards are available in each class. [Pixabay.com]](http://127.0.0.1/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/ghows-DA-48fd670f-68cb-2432-e053-0100007fe921-e6d9b5af.jpeg)
MILTON — Southern Raceway’s 2017 season will kick off 7 p.m. March 11. Hotlaps will get underway at 6 p.m. and a free open practice session is March 10.
Opening-night racing will feature the Pure Stock, Street Stock, Vintage, Sportsman 602 Late Models and Open Wheel Modified divisions. Pretty car awards are available in each class.
The Spring Break Twin 50s is set for March 17 and 18. Both nights will feature racing action with the Southern All-Star Late Models. Saturday night’s late-model winner will get $5,000.
Looking backward, Feb. 18 racing action ended abruptly as fog limited drivers’ visibility.
Top qualifiers in the NeSmith Crate Late Model and NeSmith Street Stock divisions were declared winners.
In the Pure Stock division, Jay’s Tally Warrick led the event with seven cautions, which included two red flags, only to see the win slip from his grasp in the final 50 feet.
Warrick restarted the race on lap 19 for the third time and took the green-and-white flag at the same time, while being closely followed by Michael Emmons.
Emmons awaited his opportunity, which appeared off turn four as Warrick slid a little high and Emmons put the nose of his car underneath.
The push from the corner was all he needed to edge Warrick by a couple of inches at the start finish line.
During the race, there were two red flags for accidents that involved cars rolling over.
On lap 13, Gueston Rogers’ car landed on its roof coming off turn two, then on lap 19 Trenton Odom’s car went over in an accident as he and Dalton Morrison touched coming off turn two.
Both drivers were shaken up but okay.
Rounding out the top five were Chris Brown, Jesse James and Michael Born.
In the Vintage division, Blake Martin sought to get the win that got away from him the first weekend of the Winter Nationals.
Martin battled hard with Kenneth Tarter and last week’s winner, Kraig Crossley, early on, but lapped traffic gave him the edge to get to victory lane.
After Crestview’s Hunter Ward stalled on the backstretch, and brought out the last caution on lap 10, Martin proved to be unstoppable the final 10 laps.
Rounding out the top five behind Martin were Tarter in second followed by Crossley, Marvin Cuevas and Billy Shaw.
Tommy Lowery tried to make the Singer division feature interesting when he jumped the start and was moved back a row by race director Kenny Bullard.
On the restart, Lowery quickly found his way to the front and dominated the night.
Charlie Simmons, who was involved in an early race incident, battled his way from the back of the field to finish second, followed by Brandon Allen, Kyle Watson and Josh Douglas to round out the top five.
The fog forced race officials to cancel the last two races of the evening due to poor visibility and driver safety.
Due to the cancellation, Harold’s Stuart Wilson won his second consecutive NeSmith Street Stock feature, while Joseph Joiner claimed the NeSmith Crate Late Models feature.
Joiner edged Harold’s Frank Wilson by a mere .211 seconds in qualifying. Most of the NeSmith Crate Late Models field were separated by less than eight-tenths of a second.
Pure Stock Heat 1 — 1. Lane Heaton, 2. Jesse James, 3. Kurt Horne, 4. Wayne Plunkett and 5. Jason McDaniel.
Pure Stock Heat 2 — 1. Tally Warrick, 2. Chris Gibson, 3. Troy Williams, 4. Dillan Petty and 5. Joshua Howell.
Pure Stock Heat 3 — 1. Michael Emmons, 2. Dalton Morrison, 3. Chris Brown, 4. Bubba Fletcher and 5. Michael Born.
Pure Stock Heat 4 — 1. William Arnett, 2. Jake Senterfitt, 3. Trenton Odom, 4. Ronnie Hardy and 5. Tim Witherington.
Stinger Heat 1 — 1. Tommy Lowery, 2. Charlie Simmons, 3. Robert Wolfe, 4. Kyle Watson and 5. Brandon Allen.
Vintage Heat 1 — 1. Kenneth Tarter, 2. Kelsey Martin, 3. Kraig Crossley, 4. David Warren and 5. Robin Christensen.
Vintage Heat 2 — 1. Blake Martin, 2. Billy Shaw, 3. Tommy Gilmore, 4. Brian Daniels and 5. Hunter Ward.
NeSmith Street Stock Heat 1 — 1. Stuart Wilson, 2. Brandon Kilpatrick, 3. Tim Fowler, 4. Bo Bailey and 5. Howie Reeves.
NeSmith Street Stock Heat 2 — 1. Mike Lane, 2. Sean Goodwini, 3. JC Wilson, 4. Chandler Shaw and 5. Derek Gilmore.
NeSmith Crate Late Models Qualifying — 1. Joseph Joiner 15.644 seconds, 2. Frank Wilson 15.855, 3. Josh Huss 16.030, 4. James Ward 16.107, 5. Colton Leyendecker 16.122, 6. Chris Bayhi 16.166, 7. Todd Jones 16.210, 8. Brandon Hood 16.389, 9. Justin Able 16.437, 10. Kyle Bryant 16.442, 11. Chris O’Connor 16.476 and 12. Chris Rutherford 17.277.
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See www.southernraceway.com for more information about upcoming events
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Southern Raceway to open 2017 season