First it was Tim McCreadie destroying a tire from second. Later on Kyle Bronson had similar issues. In the final five laps, it was Bobby Pierce getting roughed up from the lead and then Brandon Sheppard exiting the race from fourth.
At the end of the night, it was Kyle Strickler picking up the win and holding off the field on a green-white-checkered finish.
“This is just so great for our whole team,” Strickler said on the DirtVision broadcast. “This was probably my favorite race of my career. It’s so fun to go back and forth like that. We were probably going to run fourth or fifth there and then cautions came out, Bobby (Pierce) either got broke or got a flat. Next thing you know, we were leading.”
The win is Strickler’s second straight in the series.
He took the last Outlaws feature during the Sunshine Nationals at Volusia Speedway Park, and now he starts four straight nights of racing at the Florida race track with a victory on Wednesday.
“We took the green and went straight backwards. I was like, ‘Man, we have messed up,'” Strickler said on the broadcast. “All the leaders went to the top, and the car really came to us. I never thought I would have gone back to eighth and get back to the front. Thank god for those restarts. Sometimes, it’s better to be lucky than good.”
The bad luck for certain teams was just the nature of the beast, though.
A handful of drivers utilized World of Outlaws provisionals after missing the transfers into the feature event.
It drove up the main event field to over 30 cars and the luck, obviously, continued to trend down from there.
One driver not on the bad side of that, though, remains to be Hudson O’Neal.
He already captured a Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series win during the Winter Nationals week, and now has a runner-up finish to add to his name in the new No. 71 car.
“Once the ball gets rolling, it keeps rolling,” O’neal said on the broadcast. “Right now, it doesn’t feel like it’s ever going to stop. I’m happy we’re on the right side of the ball right now. We’ll just take advantage of it while we can and live in the moment.”
The Outlaws will return to the track at Volusia on Thursday night for the second night of action from Barberville. The action will once again kick off at 4:15 p.m. CT with hot laps, streaming live on DirtVision.
World of Outlaws Late Model
DIRTCar Nationals Night 1 Results
1. Kyle Strickler
2. Hudson O’Neal
3. Ricky Thornton Jr.
4. Jimmy Owens
5. Brian Shirley
6. Tyler Bruening
7. Ross Bailes
8. Ryan Gustin
9. Ricky Weiss
10. Josh Richards
11. Scott Bloomquist
12. Tony Jackson Jr.
13. Rick Eckert
14. Boom Briggs
15. Kyle Bronson
16. Ross Robinson
17. Dan Stone
18. Cade Dillard
19. Darrell Lanigan
20. Brandon Sheppard
21. Dennis Erb Jr.
22. John Baker
23. Mike Norris
24. Chase Junghans
25. Shane Clanton
26. Blake Spencer
27. Ashton Winger
28. David Breazeale
29. Ryan Scott
30. Bobby Pierce
31. Tim McCreadie
