Lantz gets first win
Chad Lantz (16) celebrates his first win. Inset: Controversial contact between Johnny Williams (44) and Jon Pharis (53) bringing out the final caution of the final SNS race in LNR history.
Jon Pharis (53) looked to have the truck to beat as he took the MRD Pole Award for the O’Reilly 200 at Memphis Motorsports Park with a lap of 24.013 seconds, and then proceeded to take the Yum! Brand Lap Leader award for the event. In classic SNS short track style, there were many laps of 2-wide, and even a couple of 3-wide moments. One of those 3-wide moments resulted in a single vehicle spin. Three of the five cautions were due to single car spins, mostly from drivers making avoidance moves and losing control. Two of the event cautions were caused by contact, and the second one, which was the event ending caution, was quite controversial. After having just come off of a caution for a single vehicle spin, the field took the green with 3 laps to go. Johnny Williams (44) dove under Pharis going into turn one, but he couldn’t make it stick and Pharis pulled back into the lead and dove to the inside going into turn 3. Williams got too close in the middle of 3 and 4 and rubbed the back of the #53 PACCAR F-150, causing Pharis to spin. Since they were at the front of the field, the caution flew again. Williams slowed to avoid Pharis’s spinning truck, and 3rd place Chad Lantz (16) was able to avoid the spin and beat the field back to the caution. Shawn Becher (07) got on it hard coming off of 4 to try to catch Lantz, but just ended up spinning into the infield and “mowing the grass”, sliding backwards across the stripe to finish 4th.
The jondoble.com Improving the Finish Award goes to Lantz, who gained 4 positions on his way to his 1st LNR win. The LNR Heartbreak Award goes to Pharis, who lost 4 spots and finished 5th. The PDS Quality Driving award is a 3 way tie, going to Williams, Lantz, and Becher, who all three split spinning trucks of Chris Darling (14) and Brett Black (29) mid race, coming off of turn 2. A lot of fun was had by all in the final LNR SNS race, ever, and several drivers look on the close of this series with sadness. However, they will be able to take their trucks straight over to the Thursday Night Thunder Series that will be starting up in a couple of weeks. The league will be taking next weekend off. Enjoy your 4th of July holiday weekend!
