Texan John Heil wins Outlaw Stock feature at the Snowball Derby

[NickHolt]

Texan John Heil wins Outlaw Stock feature at the Snowball Derby.

Courtesy of Speed51

Results to follow..... in a bit. 

[Pacecar]

https://speed51.com/outlaw-stock-driver-wins-his-own-snowball-derby/

The Outlaw Stock race at the 52nd Annual Snowball Derby was just exactly that: a derby. Multiple red flags marred the 50-lap feature, trimming down the field from 32 at the start to just 14 by the time the checkered flag was thrown over an hour later.

 

Gary Sutton took the lead at the onset of the race and dominated most of the feature before the slew of wrecks caught up to him. He was passed for the lead by John Heil on a restart with 16 laps to go and proceeded to free fall through the field. He would eventually recover for a top 10 finish.

 

Meanwhile, Heil was on cruise control from the moment he wrestled the lead away from Sutton and would go on to score the win. The Texas driver set fast time out of 42 cars who made the trip to Five Flags Speedway earlier in the day, but would not taste the lead until lap 34.

 

With the high attrition rate, Heil was more worried about finishing the race than finishing first.

 

“I knew we had a good car from the start, I just didn’t want to tear it up. You get around, you cut a tire, but hell it was getting down to the end and I had to make something happen,” Heil said on the Speed51 broadcast. “I got lucky and made it happen.”

 

The win was the biggest one of Heil’s career to this point. While it may not have taken place on Sunday afternoon, he will still call himself a Snowball Derby champion.

 

“It’s the best thing I’ve ever done. I know it’s not the Snowball Derby but it’s as close as I’ll ever get to it.”

 

Joe Bethea Jr started ninth and survived the attrition to finish second after a daring three-wide move on the final restart. Considering how qualifying went for the team, it was a successful night for the Alabama driver, who finished runner-up in the Outlaw Stock feature for the second year in a row.

 

“I hate to see all those good cars get tore up, I know everybody puts a lot of time and effort into them,” Bethea said. “I kind of put my guys behind the eight-ball today starting ninth, didn’t have a good qualifying effort, but we had a good race car. To finish second from ninth is pretty good.”

 

Former Five Flags Speedway track champion Kody Brusso finished third, followed by Cameron Henderson and George Gorham Jr.

 

Outlaw Stocks Results:
Pos # Driver
1 96H John Heil
2 33 Joe Bethea Jr
3 7B Kody Brusso
4 92 Cameron Henderson
5 03 George Gorham
6 1 Donald Crocker
7 9D Brooke Storer
8 93 Paul Jean
9 21H David Hodges
10 00 Jeff Belt
11 16 Bubba Winslow
12 23 Gary Goodwin
13 5C Chase Oliver
14 407 Jason Vail
15 40 Stephen Nasse
16 31 Wayne Niedecken
17 151 Gary Sutton
18 26 Corbitt Moseley
19 3C Casey Caudill
20 32 Stuart Dutton
21 91 Chris Cotto
22 96D Greg Davidson
23 71 Jody Henderson
24 4J Todd Jones
25 21F Jason Furrow
26 6 Nathan Henderson
27 21W Jason Welch
28 84 Doug Thorp Jr
29 8B Justin Beck
30 10 Patrick Thomas
31 51F Jake Finch
32 54 Connor Sutton

-Story by: Koty Geyer, Speed51.com State Editor (IN/MI) – Twitter: @kgeyer3
-Photo Credit: Speed51.com

[NickHolt]

Thanks, Larry.

[txtom]

More Derby success; Augie Grill won the Friday Modified race in John’s house BMF Chassis.

[toyotatim]

Two other Texas cars running up front took each other out