LIMA, Ohio — Colten Burdette entered Friday night’s Late Model Mania presented by LuseStyle.com as the Valvoline American Late Model Iron Man Series points leader, but he had yet to win his first Iron Man race.
He marked that checkbox in dramatic fashion, passing for the lead and the win on the final lap at Limaland Motorsports Park on Friday night. It was the first late model race on the quarter-mile track since 2007.
As the green flag flew, Burdette led his No. 53c, with Clint Keenan battling for the point. Burdette began to extend his lead on lap 7, but caution was issued when Blake Creech’s No. 317 spun.
On the restart, Rod Conley would show Burdette the nose of his car and attempt to take the lead, but all eyes were turned back as Jeff Babcock began taming the high line around Limaland to charge to the front.
Babcock drove the No. 7b to fifth on lap 9, then third on lap 12.
On lap 15, he moved up to second place before taking advantage of lapped traffic to take the lead on lap 24. Rusty Schlenk was quietly moving to follow Babcock to the front as he manoeuvred his way there. Schlenk took third on lap 24 and began to close on the leaders until the caution flew again on lap 28, setting up a two-lap sprint to the finish.
On the restart, Babcock returned to the top of the race track and did everything he could to hold off Burdette, but Burdette was able to slip past Babcock on the final lap and hold off Babcock and Schlenk at the finish line.
Seth Daniels would finish fourth, and Keenan would round out the top five.
Justin Long won the thunderstock feature, while Dillon Nusbaum took the modified main event.
The finish:
Feature (30 Laps): 1. 53C-Colten Burdette[1]; 2. 7B-Jeff Babcock[7]; 3. 91-Rusty Schlenk[8]; 4. S21-Seth Daniels[4]; 5. 29-Clint Keenan[3]; 6. 71R-Rod Conley[5]; 7. 1N-Casey Noonan[11]; 8. 46-Colin Shipley[9]; 9. 18C-Miles Cook II[16]; 10. 95-Jerry Bowersock[13]; 11. 50-Ryan Missler[2]; 12. 1-Shane Bailey[14]; 13. 44-Scott Boyd Jr[18]; 14. 8-Rob Anderzack[15]; 15. 56-BJ Gregory[17]; 16. 75-Dusty Moore[10]; 17. 317-Blake Creech[6]; 18. 71DS-Drew Smith[20]; 19. G15-Jacob Gamber[19]; 20. 151-Trace Settles[21]; 21. 63-Terry Rushlow[12]; 22. (DNS) 114-Clayton Bryant
