Wall holds on for MSCCS win at Whynot

by Scott White

On a beautiful night at the "Action Track of the South" Chris Wall of Holden, LA battled his way to his 5th Mississippi State Championship Challenge Series win of the season Saturday night at Whynot Motorsports Park.

On the front row to start the 50 lap MSCCS main event were Chis Wall and Meridian's Jim McDuffie. In the early laps McDuffie stormed out to a big lead running the top side of the track until a caution on lap nine bunched the field. On the restart McDuffie would maintain the lead with Wall keeping pace until another caution on lap 15.

On the next restart Wall would make the pass down low on McDuffie and Neil Baggett of Shannon followed taking over second. After a long battle in lap traffic between Wall and Baggett, a caution came out again with six laps to go and Bagget was disqualified for violating track rules by stepping out of his race car while under caution to dispute a call that would have sent him to the rear.

Track rules state the only time a racer can get out of a race car while on the track is under a red flag for safety reasons. Back in the mid 90's, The late race car driver John L. Cliett was ran over and broke both legs on the back straightaway after climbing out of his car under yellow to check something on his car.

Wall went on to take the win with David Ashley of Zachary, LA second, MSCCS points leader Chad Thrash of Collinsville third, Jim McDuffie fourth, and Jason Cliburn of Star, fifth.

"We earned this one" Wall said in victory lane. Wall also set fast time among 30 Super Late Models with a 12.922 on a super fast racing surface prepared by track Owner Rodney Wing. This was only the third time since the late Johnny Barr set the track record at 12.92 that a 12 second lap has been recorded at Whynot. Wall was the first at the 2006 Fall Classic with a 12.988. Chris McElhenney of Decatur done it last year with an unoffical time in the 12.50's on a night with clock issues.

Wall also won the dash while the B main winners were Neil Bagget and Scott Slay.

Randy King won the Modified feature with Ben Shelton second, "Mr Whynot" Kyle Rutledge third, Tony Herny fourth and Daniel Moore fifth.

The "Toomsuba Torpedo" Artis Bunyard won the Street Stock feature, Jeffrey Walker second, Kyle Rutledge third, Kyle Mars fourth, and David Nations fifth.

Johnny Pearson won the Mini Stock feature with Chris Jarrell second, Justin Anderson third, Alton Evans fourth and Bill Bunyard fifth.

Andy Taylor won the Stinger feature and Logan Hembree won his first Pure Stock feature.

Race fans Whynot will be back in action this Saturday night with a regular racing series event. And coming up August 1st will be the second appearance of the fast and furious Winged Cajun Sprinters. For more information go to www.whynotmotorsportspark.com