WENATCHEE, Wash. – Haeden Plybon scored his first Northwest Super Late Model Series victory late Sunday afternoon at the Wenatchee Valley Super-Oval during the Leonard Evans 150.
The victory was his second of the weekend for the 17-year-old, after scoring a win in the 100-lap pro late model feature Saturday night.
For Plybon, it was only his third series start, all of which came at the Central Washington quarter-mile facility. It was a hard-earned victory after taking the lead in lapped traffic, then having to fend off fellow rookie Bryce Bezanson for the win.
“It is definitely my biggest win so far, and my first super late model race win,” Plybon said. “I’m glad we are finally getting the hang of it. It’s pretty cool going back-to-back and I’m glad that it happened. It was kinda dicey at the start, and I got turned around once, but we luckily were already under caution. We just kinda battled up there until it went single file on the long run, because it made the race better and better. (I got the lead) when the #7 overshot it into one, and I took my shot and made it stick and got him at the end”.
Plybon led the day off by setting a Fast Time of 12.724 seconds, beating Tristan Haidar by a mere .001 seconds in the 26-car field. A redraw saw Plybon draw the No. 8 pill while Chad Hinkle started from the pole.
It took Plybon most of the race to make up the ground lost during the redraw. He took second on lap 80 before setting his sights on Bryce Bezanson, who’d taken the lead following a series of cautions just prior to lap 20.
Shortly after lap 100 Bezanson caught a pack of slower cars, which allowed Plybon to close in on his back bumper. As Bezanson was trying to get past a slower car he slipped going into turn one. That opened the bottom for Plybon, who made the pass for the race lead.
Bezanson tried to stay with Plybon and was right with him when the white flag waved, but Plybon drove a flawless final lap to take the victory.
Doni Wanat finished third, followed by Garrett Evans and Chad Hinkle.
The finish:
1. Haeden Plybon, 2. Bryce Bezanson, 3. Doni Wanat, 4. Garrett Evans, 5. Chad Hinkle, 6. Jason O’Neil, 7. Max Schroeder, 8. Trenton Moriarity, 9. Kole Raz, 10. Austin Thom, 11. Christopher Kalsch, 12. Buddy Kofoid, 13. Chris Kellogg, 14. Jake Woods, 15. Matt Doyle, 16. Dale Wennerberg, 17. Scott Graf, 18. Kaylee Bryson, 19. Dave Garber, 20. Cam Kellogg, 21. Kit VanBuskirk, 22. Randy Becker, 23. Tristan Haidar, 24. Alan Cress, 25. Andy Beaman.