The unique feature winner trophies on the opening night of the 13th Annual Tuckasee Toilet Bowl included plungers and a roll of toilet paper, very fitting for this show in more ways than one. The debut of the new ownership for the MARS series, headed by track owner William Scogin, drew a solid field of forty Super Late Models to the Clarksville Speedway Friday night, a nice increase from 29 last year with the addition of an East region schedule in 2017 to go along with the traditional MARS tour that will now be dubbed the West region.
Rodney Sanders earned the pole position for the 30-lap main event and he stuck to the bottom throughout to go flag-to-flag for the $3,000 victory. Veteran driver Terry English was able to wrestle second away from three-time MARS champion Tony Jackson Jr. on a mid-race restart and Kent Robinson took fourth away from Cody Mahoney when the fourth heat race winner tested the high side for a lap.
Defending track champion Caleb Ashby spun directly in front of the leader to draw the only caution of the event on lap fourteen and the red flag waved shortly after the restart when the back of the field stacked up causing Jeff Roth to get sideways and when Randy Roth t-boned him Jeff's car turned over onto its top. Both Roth's were provisional starters.
Twenty-three UMP Modifieds were on hand with many of the top drivers in the region racing for fifteen laps on this first night of two at Clarksville. Heat winners Clayton Miller and Victor Lee started on the front row and when Miller drifted wide off four on the opening lap, Lee took advantage and appeared to lead lap one. A spin at the back of the pack though required an original restart, and then another, and then another, and each time Miller did not repeat his mistake. Once underway Miller grabbed the point and Lee waited for a mistake through several more restarts, but it never came and Clayton Miller, who also finished eighth in the Late Model headliner secured the win.
Hot laps were advertised for 6:30 on this chilly night where the temperature dipped below freezing around midnight. All three headline divisions had two laps each of qualifying to determine the heat race lineups where the fastest drivers started the heats up front and the first race of the night, the Super Late Model first heat race took the green at 9:04 p.m. It was a good one as this is where Sanders earned the win taking the lead away from fast qualifier Kent Robinson mid-race as the racing groove was at least two-wide. But, as so often is the case with the "I'm Fast Start Me Up Front" format, the fast way around quickly went to the bottom and passing was at a premium the rest of the night.
The Pro (Crate) Late Models were split into four five-car heat races. The twenty-three Modifieds also ran four heat races. A four car field of Mini Mods ran a feature only that saw three cautions and an eight car field of Mod Lites recovered from an inauspicious start where two cars just snapped spun on the opening lap to also run a feature only using more of the track than the others. The Late Models and Modifieds followed and the Pro Late Models would round out the show. After five attempts at a start, one of them negated when second row starter A.J. May just wasn't happy with his start, so he slowed on the front stretch and was given his place back for the next try, they got a lap in only to suffer a couple of more cautions.
At that point it was 12:30 a.m. and I was chilled to the bone so I said goodbye to my 2016 Super Fan champion friends, Ed Reichert and Gary Lee, and told them to enjoy night number two. That's why they are champions and I am not.
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