CLEWISTON, Fla. — Pennsylvania’s Mark Smith had to beat polesitter Paulie Colagiovalli to the first turn on lap one from outside the front row and hold on to collect his 41st career USCS Outlaw Thunder Tour win.
The event was the 900th USCS Main event. The event also served as the Snow-Free Sprint Car Winternationals 25-lap prelim at Hendry County Motorsports Park and the round three of the fifth annual USCS Winter Heat mini-series.
Colagiovanni had earned his pole position starting spot after winning the Hoosier Speed Dash over the top six drivers to create the final starting order for the USCS A-Main.
Colagiovanni kept Smith in his sights and was chasing him through lapped traffic and challenging when two late race cautions gave Mark Smith clean air with zero lap cars to deal with twice over the last five laps.
When the checkers waved, Mark Smith added the victory to his resume and runner-up Paulie Colagiovanni, and the 2022 USCS Winter Heat mini-series champion, Davey Franek standing on the podium in that order.
Chris Martin followed in fourth place and Quebec’s Jordan Poirier rounded out the top five.
Daison Pursley won the micro sprint feature.
The finish:
Feature (25 laps): 1. 43-Mark Smith[2]; 2. 10C-Paulie Colagiovanni[1]; 3. 28F-Davie Franek[3]; 4. 44-Chris Martin[6]; 5. 28-Jordan Poirier[4]; 6. 14-Jordon Mallett[14]; 7. 4-Danny Smith[10]; 8. 12-Corbin Gurley[8]; 9. 9M-Liam Martin[7]; 10. 21-Gavan Boschele[15]; 11. 23-Lance Moss[11]; 12. 10-Terry Gray[12]; 13. 28W-Jeff Willingham[13]; 14. 5D-Jacob Dykstra[5]; 15. 15-Garrett Green[19]; 16. 20C-Steve Diamond Jr[17]; 17. 77-Tyeller Powless[20]; 18. (DNF) 3G-Todd Gracey[9]; 19. (DNF) 1C-Brenham Crouch[16]; 20. (DNS) 96S-Brandon Sampson; 21. (DNS) 11-Cory Spencer