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Baton Rouge, Louisiana (October 18, 2002) - Curt Lipsey parlayed a pole starting position into his first-ever O'Reilly SUPR victory at Baton Rouge Raceway Friday night. Lipsey got the jump Bubba Mullins and then held off a late charge from Kenny Merchant to take the 25-lap feature win. Mullins finished third followed by Jay Blair in fourth and Ryan Plaisance rounded out the top five. Lipsey, who qualified on the pole in his Surrett Trucking/Xtreme Graphics Wall 2 Wall Performance Engines-powered Chevrolet Monte Carlo GRT for the fourth time this season, was finally able to have all the right pieces fall in to place as he shot by Mullins right from the start and set a strong pace upfront throughout the race. Mullins would do battle with Kevin Watts early before Merchant made the mid-race charge to grab second and set off in pursuit of Lipsey. And while Merchant has earned a reputation as a driver capable of running down and passing an early race leader, Lipsey was clearly up to the challenge and held off all of Merchant’s advances. Lipsey was just about speechless after the race, the realization that he had accomplished a goal that he and his father Henry had set when they elected to begin chasing the O’Reilly SUPR trail. The Lipsey’s figured that the only way that could become competitive with the tour drivers was to become one. This proved to be a tough decision to make as the team struggled during the middle of the season with motor troubles but one that would pay benefits at year’s end with the big first O’Reilly SUPR Late Model victory. “I don’t know what to say. Everything went good for us, perfect. I just couldn’t have done it without the Surrett bunch and all my crew, Billy McDonald with B&K – they helped me all year. If I wouldn’t have had their help I wouldn’t have been able to make all them races and learned how to do it.” Kenny Merchant started seventh despite winning his heat race and then had to work his way through some tight racing to place himself in a position to battle for the lead in his J.D. Caver/Goddard Performance/Bayou Fabricators Keith Craft-powered Ford Mustang Warrior. Merchant worked clear of fellow Monroe Mafia member Bubba Mullins but was unable to close in on Lipsey enough to challenge for the win. Bubba Mullins, who spent most of the season competing at his home track in Chatham, showed he was still capable of winning but was just a hair behind the lead duo as the checkers waved. Jay
Blair, a winner at Houston Raceway Park, logged another solid run coming
home in fourth ahead of Ryan Plaisance.
Plaisance’s fifth place finish allowed him to retake fourth place
in the championship standings as he moved back by Jon Mitchell, who had to
enter the race via the second last chance race. The
O'Reilly SUPR Late Model point chase tightened up as David Ashley scored a
7th place finish while Rodney Wing as black flagged for spinning out Ronny
Adams while battling through turn 3 near the halfway mark. This cut Wing’s lead down to 43 points with Saturday
night’s State Championship race and the Jambalaya 100 remaining on the
schedule. David Ashley, who
blew a motor in his primary car, switched to his teammate’s car (Randy
Cook) and made the field on a point provisional.
Once in the show, Ashley would work past 14 cars to earn the Lloyd
Wild Jr. Logging Hard Charger award. 39
O’Reilly SUPR Late Models were on hand with Tommy Surrett, Rodney Wing,
Curt Lipsey, Kenny Merchant and Kevin Watts taking the heat race wins.
Dennis Duncan and Sam Patrick staked the last chance victories to
earn a spot in the feature. Official
Results: 1.
Curt Lipsey 2.
Kenny Merchant 3.
Bubba Mullins 4.
Jay Blair 5.
Ryan Plaisance 6.
Ritchie Cauthen 7.
David Ashley 8.
Rob Litton 9.
Rusty Cooper 10.
Ronny Adams 11.
Jon Mitchell 12.
Kennith Crowe 13.
Tommy Surrett 14.
Davin Bates 15.
Odie Green 16.
Rodney Wing 17.
Kevin Watts 18.
Jason Polite 19.
Sam Patrick 20.
Chris Wall 21.
Dennis Duncan 22.
Chris Hennigan 23.
Jerry Bevis
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