LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — I-30 Speedway’s Inaugural Wingless Short Track Nationals presented by KNP Painting fired off in spectacular fashion Friday night with Justin Zimmerman edging Cody Gardner by mere inches at the line.
The duo swapped the lead a pair of times in the final handful of laps of the 20-round affair before racing side-by-side to the photo finish that awarded $1,000 to Zimmerman in the ASCS Elite non-winged sprint car feature.
“I could hear someone turning some RPM’s so I knew they had to be running up top,” Zimmerman said. “He showed his nose and then got by, I knew I had to concentrate and hit my marks.”
With the win, Zimmerman exited the Friday night preliminary atop event points that set Saturday heat lineups going into the $5,000-to-win finale.
After leading laps 15 and 16 only to come up just short of defending his home territory, Gardner said, “That was a lot of fun racing with those guys. It has been about six years since I have run without a wing so it feels pretty good to run that well.”
Jason Howell climbed from tenth to round out the podium in third, making for a podium that include a 410-ci powerplant (Zimmerman), a 360-ci engine (Gardner) and Howell’s 305-ci machine.
Keith Martin crossed the stripe fourth with Topeka’s Chris Morgan racing from 14th to round out the top five and earn KNP Hard Charger honors.
The finish:
Feature (20 Laps): 1. #1-Justin Zimmerman (1), 2. G6-Cody Gardner (3), 3. 44-Jason Howell (10), 4. 79-Keith Martin (2), 5. 81a-Chris Morgan (14), 6. 31-Mason Smith (5), 7. 24-Landon Simon (15), 8. 20-Shon Deskins (6), 9. 15J-Jeremy Middleton (12), 10. 48-Caden McCreary (17), 11. 14-Jordon Mallett (13), 12. 11w-Wyatt Burks (11), 13. 38-Zach Pringle (18), 14. 1-Paul White (8), 15. 9jr-Derek Hagar (16), 16. 3-Howard Moore (20), 17. 1x-Tim Crawley (19), 18. 16-Anthony Nicholson (7), 19. 47-Dale Howard (9), 20. 99x-Dalton Stevens (4).