Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 3, 1990 TAG: 9006030138
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JEFF MOTLEY SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: DUBLIN LENGTH: Medium
Driving 100 laps was the easy part of the evening for the Christiansburg driver.
The clutch on Thomas' car was slipping when he arrived at the track. While the other cars were turning several practice laps, Thomas and his crew were rolling around on dollies trying to fix the car.
Just as his rivals were finishing their qualifying runs, Thomas stuck his screw driver in his pocket and put on his racing helmet. He then qualified on the outside pole and rolled to victory.
"We were hoping to be able to qualify and I was worried for a while," Thomas said. "We didn't get to the track until 3:30 and that put us behind. But once we got going, it rode like it was on a rail. I could have been eating a sandwich while I was driving it was so smooth."
The former Winston Cup rookie of the year, took the lead from pole-sitter Ricky Seay on the first lap and continued to stretch his lead. Only a caution flag eight laps from the finish held his margin of victory to about five car-lengths.
Roanoke's Tink Reedy and Floyd's Jeff Agnew were left to battle for second and third. Reedy, who leads the Mid-Atlantic region points standings, held off Agnew for the No. 2 spot.
"When Tink won a few weeks ago, he made a comment in the newspaper about how me and Johnny Rumley started racing and that let him pull away," Thomas said. "That helped me tonight when he and Agnew started racing together."
Attrition was the name of the game in the Modified Mini Stock race. Dean Young of Radford was the winner of the 35-lap event in which only eight of 16 cars that started were running at the finish.
Narrows' Mark Akers picked up his first Street Stock victory. Akers held off a stiff challenge from Hank Turman and Darian Durham to post the victory.
Ronnie Byrd of Dublin won easily in the Pure Stock race, and Christiansburg's Wayne Lawson held off Mark and Charlie Smith to take the checkered flag in the Mini Stock race.
Keywords:
AUTO RACING
by CNB