Silver Dollar Speedway, 4-14-00
Richard Brace Jr. was the man of the night at Silver Dollar for the dirt modified main event; however it also helps to be a little lucky.
In his heat race, Brace Jr. was vying for a third place finish, when on the last lap, an incident that was out of his control happened. He was going into turn three and had set his car in a drift when right in front of him a car had spun. Brace Jr. (hit that) car with a bunch of speed and it completely destroyed the front right side of his car. Brace Jr. would be credited for finishing fourth, even though he didn’t come around for the finish.
What was very unlucky turned out to be lucky because the pill that was drawn for the night’s inversion was a five, which put him on the front row. This was a place that he would never stray from during the 20-lap race. For the first half of the race, Live Oaks Matt Micheli was Brace Jr.’s shadow. On lap 11, Mike Sohnrey and Joey Hubbard tangled coming out turn one. At the time those drivers were running third and fourth. On the restart, Scott Busby passed Micheli for second. Busby ran in that position until lap 15, when a he drifted off the track coming out of turn four. That enabled Bud Walberg to move into second about three car lengths behind Brace Jr. Walberg was hard on the gas all night as he started inside row six and found himself in seocnd place with five laps left.On lap 18, Walberg had caught Brace Jr. and began to pressure the #2R Brace Mufflers and Welding of Brace Jr.
With the white flag flying, Walberg stuck his nose under Brace Jr. out of turn two and had a run going down the back straight. Through turns three and four, the two cars became almost side by side with Brace Jr. wining by less than a car length at the checkered flag. Walberg finished second, followed by Busby and Matt Micheli. Ken Micheli deserves the hard charger award a he started outside of row number nine and wound up finishing in fifth.
