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Williams Invincible at The Bridge

WILLIAMS INVINCIBLE AT THE BRIDGE.

(Natural Bridge, Virginia) A picture perfect weekend in the shadows of the Shenandoah Mountain range brought race fans out in droves as the excitement from two feature races on Friday night carried over to Saturday as Night 2 of the 1st Annual Battle For The Bridge began at Natural Bridge Speedway. Fans streamed down Highway 11 anticipating the event of the year as bright, hot sunshine kept clouds at bay all afternoon.

Thirty drivers from five different states signed in for the second crown jewel of the 2022 #deuceswild tour paying one driver $10,000 after 60 laps around the 3/8ths oval. HGR's Truck & Trailer Sales, Inc. group qualifying started off the evening with $300 on the line for the fastest Bandit presented by Bryan Sullivan and The Muffler Place of Wilmington, North Carolina. Dustin Mitchell set quick time overall in group A with Justin Williams fastest in group B. It would be Michell’s third pole of the season for the points leader.

Four eight lap heat races would help to begin setting the starting lineup for the big show with four cars out of each heat transferring. Michell and Derick Quade Racing would lead the first heat to green as the excited crowd rose to their feet . Mitchell powers his way to another heat race win followed by Quade, Derrick Rankin Racing #72 and Michael Batten going with him out of the Scott Service Company heat. The Hardison Suspension Technologies Heat saw Russell Erwin hold off Tyler Bare for the win bringing Walker Arthur and Larry Ramsey with them. Justin Williams would dominate the Mega Plumbing of the Carolinas heat number 3, with Shaun Wetzel, Matt Long and hometown driver Michael Alderman making their way in. Milton, Delaware’s Robbie Emory picked up the VP Racing Fuels heat four win over Henry Hornsby, Jay Sessoms and Cody Wright.

With sixteen drivers locked in, it was time for the two Motul last chance qualifiers races that would take the top three out of each event to fill in the remaining big spots. Brandon Dockery would win the first 8 lap race over Brian Strickland and Willie Milliken. The second race had a lot of hometown flavor in it as Waynesboro, Virginia’s Jerimiah Marshall would get the win over Jonathan Wolfe. The best battle was for the final spot as Josh Williams held off the veteran Dan Breuer to make his first Bandit event.

The twenty four car field was set with Lance Brasington and Breuer getting the two provisionals. As sunshine gave way to a starry sky, Mitchell and Williams brought the field to green in a dead even start off turn four. After a side by side duel for two laps, Williams would lean on his horsepower and drive around the outside of Mitchell’s Longhorn Chassis. Erwin and Bare waged a epic cat and mouse game on several restarts with Erwin changing lanes multiple times when it came to choose time. Brian Strickland would slow after only 9 laps bringing his night to an end. Willie Milliken would bring out the yellow and retire after going a lap down on lap 34. Erwin would eventually dispose of Bare on the final restart and made one last charge at Williams but comes up short crossing the line on the bumper of William’s number 2. It would be William’s second big $10,000 win at NBS and his first as a Bandit.

“We’ve been pumped all week about this one and knew we should win it but we had to go do it, marked Williams. Russell should be pretty happy with that run, I’ve never had anyone get that close to me here� noted a confident Williams. “ We gotta thank Walker for this motor because ours wasn’t ready yet, the track was very different but we adjusted to it well.�

Erwin on his second straight runner -up, “We threw all we had at it and gave it a shot , that guy has a lotta laps here so we’re satisfied, I caught him with five to go and I was going to try to pin him in traffic but it didn’t pan out.�

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BANDIT BITES:

• Bare gets his third straight podium in front of the hometown crowd, “ I needed to be out front and I think we could have held them off, the top just never came in like we needed it to but we’ll take it and move onâ€?

• Shout out to Marshall, Wolfe and Josh Williams for making their first Bandit race and to Buena Vista’s Alderman for racing his way in!

• Batten rallies from mid pack to score a very important top 10 points wise.

• Rankin picks up another bonus for being the highest finishing rookie at his home track.

• Emory gets his best finish of the season (5th) as his upward match continued last night. This team has really buckled down.

• An enormous crowd greeted the stars of the series as promoter Jim Long Jr promoted the entire event which was a rousing success.

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Battle for the Bridge

1. Justin Williams2. Russell Erwin3. Tyler Bare4. Dustin Mitchell5. Robbie Emory6.Henry Hornsby7. Derick Quade8.Walker Arthur9. Michael Batten10. Derrick Rankin11. Matt Long12. Shaun Wetzel13. Jerimiah Marshall14. Brandon Dockery15. Michael Alderman16. Cody Wright17. Lance Brasington18. Jay Sessoms19. Willie Milliken20. Josh Williams21. Larry Ramsey22. Dan Breuer23. Brian Strickland24. Jonathan Wolfe

EP/ Bandit PR

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