|
 NASHVILLE,
TN (November 7) -- Twenty-two-year-old Chuck Barnes Jr. won Sunday's
All American 300 at Music City Motorplex in Nashville, TN. It was undoubtedly
the biggest win of the Louisville, KY driver's career. The win came on
the heels of Barnes winning the 2004 Sunoco Super Series championship.
The All American 300 is part of the two-race Super Tours co-sanctioned
by the Sunoco Super Series and the Southern All Stars which competes
exclusively on Hoosier tires. Both 300-lap Super Tour races
exclusively used the Hoosier brand. Hoosier Late Model Asphalt Product
Manager Terry Newton was in Nashville attending the race and monitoring tire
performance.
Sixty-one drivers were entered in qualifying with 60
of them posting times on the 5/8-mile track. Chuck Barnes Jr. was the
event's fastest qualifier at 18.152 seconds (118.202 mph). Barnes was
followed by Gary Helton, Stanley Smith, Russell Fleeman and Scott
Carlson.
The race began with pole-sitter Barnes immediately
taking command leading the race's first 85 laps before he was passed
by tenth starting Wayne Willard. Willard led through lap 119, when a
caution brought all the frontrunners into the pits except for Barnes
who opted to stay out. The strategy almost backfired when Barnes ran
out of gas, but disaster was averted when the caution also came out at
the same time for an accident occurring in the back-stretch enabling
the young driver to stay on the lead lap.
With the race under green again, Willard came storming
back through the field regaining the lead on lap 151. The Buford, GA
driver led 78 of the next 87 laps yielding leader status just once to
Nathan Haseleu (185-193). Willard definitely had the car to beat when
disaster struck when he suffered a broken trailing arm bracket on lap
237, which handed the lead to Jason Hogan. Hogan led through lap 289,
when Barnes retook the lead with just 16 laps remaining in the race.
Barnes held off a determined Eddie Hoffman crossing the line first
among the 40 race starters. Eddie Hoffman settled for second place
followed by Jason Hogan, Boris Jurkovic, Jeff Lane, Gary Helton, Chris
Gabehart, Ken McFarland, Johnny Brazier and Eddie Massengill.
All the competitors used Hoosier 27.0/10.0-15 SX 3035
left side and 27.0/10.0-15 3045 right side tires which set the
stage for plenty of excitement and plenty of passing throughout the
entire 300-lap race.
|
