Ryan Gustin Breaks Through for $10,000 Late Model Win

Ryan Gustin has won higher paying Modified races, but in victory lane at the Tucson International Raceway this Sunday evening the young driver from Marshalltown, Iowa, proclaimed his domination of the NDRL Late Model Winter Extreme finale and the $10,000 top prize as his biggest victory ever. This win was not a surprise if you had been at Tucson the last two nights as Gustin had the fastest car on the track late in the feature both nights only to come up short finishing second to Tim Fuller on Friday and fourth on Saturday. And while this win was essentially a runaway it did not come without a bit of drama that was nearly a flashback to last year's Silver Dollar Nationals at I-80 Speedway when Gustin got into a lapped car while leading costing him a victory that would have been unbelievable after starting 34th.

Here in the desert they choose to run the finale of this six race series under the mid-afternoon Arizona sun and after an hour long re-work of the track following the heat races it appeared that the track had a couple of grooves available for the 50-lap Late Model main event. It was an all Iowa front row with Chris Simpson and Gustin bringing the field to green and Ryan wasted no time opening up a lead. As the top eight to ten cars settled into single-file formation, the rest of the field raced hard for position running two and even three wide for the first several laps. Gustin started to work lapped traffic on lap eleven allowing Simpson and the other contenders to close, but when Simpson slipped high out of turn two three laps later it allowed Shane Clanton and John Blankenship to get by just before the caution waved a lap later for a stalled Mike Balcaen.

His new challengers could not keep pace with Gustin following the restart as the track now became locked down, fast and one grooved. When the leader caught Garrett Alberson, the final car in the running order on lap twenty-seven, it took Gustin seven laps before he found an opening to make the pass although Clanton and Blankenship really didn't close the gap at all. After clearing Alberson, Gustin then treated Justin Kay like a speed bump as he hooked and spun his fellow Iowan while going down the back stretch.  When Gustin got into the lapped car of Kyle Berck at I-80 last year he suffered damage and could not hold onto the lead from there on. That would not be the case here at Tucson as Gustin again drove away from the competition on the restart and over the final fifteen laps he built a full straightaway lead to win in a convincing fashion. Clanton and Blankenship would go second and third, Wisconsin's A.J. Diemel was fourth and Kent Robinson filled out the top five.

Sunny Sunday Notes......The track locked down early and that, combined with the format where the fastest qualifiers in each heat group start up front, it was no surprise that there was very little passing during the heats. Four were won by the pole-sitter while Blankenship and Diemel won from the outside front row....For Diemel it would put him in the show for all six of the Winter Extreme features, something that only he, Billy Moyer and Tony Jackson Jr. were able to accomplish.....Following his win in the second heat race Chris Simpson gave to credit to Brian Birkhofer whom he had spent nearly an hour with on the phone this morning discussing changes to be made to the car.....Justin Kay muscled under William Thomas to take the third and final transfer in the third heat. The winner of the Ice Bowl two weeks ago, Thomas was unable to qualify for any of the six features in Tucson......Chris Simpson was restarting fourth with 15 laps to go in the main even when his right ear tire went flat.....Given the track conditions and the fact that the NFC Championship game was close and just getting into the second half I decided to pass on the Factory Stock and Modified features.

The fact that I was even here for today's show was due my mistake in booking my flights a month ago as I thought that I would be pulling back into my driveway by now instead of watching the Seahawks close out a win on my hotel television. This is my second year in a row of catching a portion of the Winter Extreme in Tucson and I would definitely recommend it. The car counts are strong, the ticket prices are very reasonable,the view is picturesque, the night races are very competitive and the local hotels actually lower their rates for race fans rather than raise them like they do in that other sunny state. Next time though I will make absolutely sure that my flight does leave on Sunday.