[SIZE=“4”]Whelen All-American Series Week #4
May Tops Pro Late 100 - 4th Win of 2013[/SIZE]
Mark Keeler - Speed51.com / New Smyrna Speedway
The Pro Late Models headlined Saturday night going for 100 laps in their first big test of the young 2013 weekly season. Four lead changes among three drivers only told half the story. Early on it was Longwood’s Brandon Johnson #41, coming off of a pair of feature wins in World Series action, who showed the way before, as he said it, “I just ran out of talent down there.” The incident saw Johnson spinning in front of the entire field in turn two on lap 29. The spin turned the lead over to Brad May #11 who was coming off of a three-win World Series. May led the next 18 laps before caution came out for 3/30 winner Larry Blount #21 who went around in turn one and backed his car had into the outside wall. On the restart it was Weeki Wachee’s Daniel Keene Jr #5 who bested May taking over the point. By that point Johnson had already worked his way back through the field to sit fourth and quickly went to P3 as the green flew.
The rest of the way the battle up front was between Keene, May and Johnson. The three raced each other as hard as they could bumping doors, fenders and May even bounced off the front stretch wall at one point. “I knew racing against these guys I’d have to keep the gas all the way pushed down.” May stated, “I just ran out of race track that one time and bounced it off the wall.”
The final of 7 cautions flew on a lap 68 restart when Kate Dallenbach #36 went around in turn two setting up the run to the checkers. Just four laps into the final green flag run, May was able to get a run inside of Keene off of turn four and the two raced side-by-side before May prevailed. Even with bouncing off the wall, May was never scored lower than third, and actually said the car seemed better at the end of the race after the shot off the concrete. Keene took down runner up honors despite a fierce battle with Johnson over the closing laps. Johnson had several opportunities to turn contact into a flat out wreck but drove Keene hard but clean. “If it was anybody other than Brandon back there I probably would’ve been wrecked. It was a lot of fun racing with these guys tonight.” said a smiling Keene in post-race. Johnson hung on for third after restarting 11th, at the tail of the field back on lap 33.
Leaders:
1-29 Johnson
33-47 May
51-68 Keene
75-100 May
Cautions: 7
L29 #41
L39 #19
L42 #57 #10
L47 #21
L58 #36 #57
L65 #92 #33
L68 #36