USAR Hooters Pro Cup: Huffman Rebounds at Lonesome Pine Raceway

Posted By Terry Callahan
Motorsports Editor, The Auto Channel

June 26, 2001

Driver Rebounds From Early Spin to Collect Third Win of the Season

Coeburn, VA – Shane Huffman rebounded from an early spin and came back to win the Food City 250 presented by Johnsonville Sausage USAR Hooters ProCup Series Southern Division race Saturday night at Lonesome Pine Raceway.

Huffman held off a hard-charging Hal Goodson on the restart and beat Jeff Agnew back to the line by less than half a second to collect his third win of the season. Steve Christian and Lee Tissot completed the top five.

“We’ve have had some bad luck the past couple of weeks and this sure helps,” said an ecstatic Huffman from victory lane. “I want to thank my crew and Billy Hess for working so hard to get this car back to us after we wrecked at Hickory Motor Speedway. My crew is great. Nobody ever got down after we spun early in the race and we just worked our way back through the field and we were able to hold of Hal (Goodson) and Jeff (Agnew) there at the end.”

Huffman was involved in a spin on lap 77 when he and R. D. Smith got together in turn one. Huffman was able to stay on the lead lap and pitted under caution.

The final green-white-checker finish was set up when Bobby Gill, Dell Murphy and Mario Gosselin all got together in turn four on lap 248 of the scheduled 250-lap race. Gill and Gosselin were both in the top-10 at the time, while Murphy was a lapped car.

Gill rebounded to finish sixth and Jay Fogleman was the last car to finish on the lead lap in seventh. Jason Sarvis, Kertus Davis and John Kinder completed the top-10. Gosselin could’t get his car to restart after the caution and lost a lap to finish 11th.

“We had a really great car tonight,” said Goodson. “We tried everything we could to get by Shane but we couldn’t do it. I got loose off of turn four and Jeff was able to get by for second. We were able to maintain our lead in the points and we’re happy to have the lead going into the second half of the season.”

Goodson won the Lance Snacks Pole Award for the second consecutive race and led the first 42 laps of the race; until Agnew took the lead on lap 43 but Goodson regained it on lap 44 as the two drivers put on a show for the fans. Agnew passed Goodson again on lap 49 and remained in front until lap 143.

“We had a really fast car tonight,” Agnew said. “We had a strategy planned for our pit stop. It didn’t work out and we still almost won the race. That shows you what kind of race car this NGA Hooters Tour puts underneath me each week.”

The pit strategy Agnew mentioned was brought into play when Agnew, Gosselin, and Goodson chose not to pit after the eighth caution flag of the race was thrown on lap 113. The next caution didn’t come until lap 213 after Scott Hall spun in turn two.

Gill passed Agnew on lap 144 and remained out front until Huffman took the lead for good on lap 149.

“I really thought we were in trouble because everyone else had fresher tires than we did,” Huffman added. “I knew it was going to be tough holding on for the win.”

Agnew led at the halfway point of the race to win the Lucas Oil Products Halfway Leader Award and Sarvis collected his second consecutive Miller Lite Rookie of the Race Award.

Mart Nesbitt and Toby Robertson each improved 13 positions during the race to win the W.J. Plemons Investments Hard Charger Award.

Goodson leads Gill by 18 points with Huffman moving into third place after his win 55 points out of the lead.

The USAR Hooters ProCup Series Southern Division returns to action in two weeks at Montgomery Motor Speedway.

Text provided by Tim Southers

Editors Note: To view hundreds of hot racing photos and art, visit The Racing Photo Museum and the Visions of Speed Art Gallery.