Great Balls of Fire

Caleb Holman appeared bound for a rare repeat at Bristol Motor Speedway.

After starting from the pole in the USARacing Pro Cup 200, the Abingdon driver dominated the first half of the race. Holman was fast down the straightaway, strong in the corners and quick out of the pits.

Then disaster struck on lap 163 in the form of a cut right front tire.

“What can you say? Stuff happens,” said Holman, who drives for Abingdon-based Henderson Motorsports. “We did everything perfect on the track and our boys had great pit stops. The car drove like a dream, right up until the tire popped and we hit the wall.”

Benny Gordon took advantage of Holman’s misfortune to win the featured event of the American Freedom Spectacular at BMS.

“It’s huge to win anytime, but Bristol is the best place in the world for racing,” Gordon said. “We’ve struggled so bad this year and our finances are off. For my guys to hang in there and then get this win, it’s really big.”

Gordon maneuvered around USAR points leader Clay Rogers with 29 laps remaining and then held on. Rogers finished second, with Brandon Ward, A.J. Frank and 15-year-old Chase Elliott rounding out the top five. Holman settled for an 11th place finish.

While Gordon celebrated his second career win at BMS, Rogers came away steaming from a bumping incident with Gordon on lap 171 after the two drivers swapped the lead.

“Benny has always been fast at this racetrack,” Rogers said. “When he has a car that he thinks he can win with, Benny turns it into a bulldozer and tries to bully everybody around. He passed everybody after we came off pit road and he ran Chase Elliott into the wall under caution.”

According to Rogers, Gordon has a reputation for being overly aggressive.

“I’ve been dealing with it for six years now,” Rogers said. “If you get sucked into a war of words with him, he just thrives on that. I’m glad [Gordon] won the race. Now, he can go buy himself another dirt late model.”

Gordon said the decisive struggle with Rogers was simply a case of hard racing.

“It took a couple of laps for my tires to come in, so Clay muscled his way through there pretty good. He didn’t touch me, but he muscled his way through there,” said Gordon, who finished second to Holman in 2008 at BMS and won in 2007. “I’ve had such a rough year, and I finally had a good car under me. I just lifted Clay’s car coming off the corner a little. Clay saved it, and then I just ran as hard as I could so he didn’t get back to my bumper.’’

Due to rain, no qualifying session was held and the starting field was set based off the points standings. Holman posted the fastest time in Saturday’s practice with a lap of 15.716 at 122.092 miles per hour. Rogers was second fastest at 15.991 in the 20 car field.

Holman led the first 85 laps, and then also controlled the race again from lap 104 to 163.

Gordon, who made 10 Nationwide Series starts last year, made repeated charges at Holman.

“That might have been what cut the tire because we kept getting higher and higher,” Holman said. “The higher you get on the track, the more trash you pick up. But, Benny was awfully good.”

While Gordon established a comfort zone around the high groove of the track, Holman’s car worked better on the low side.

“I honestly thought we had kind of a cakewalk until Benny got by Clay there early in the race,” Holman said. “I couldn’t let Benny get on the high side because he could take my line off the corner.”

The Henderson Motorsports team also fielded a car for former NASCAR competitor Rick Wilson. That effort ended in frustration on lap 21 when Wilson was involved in an accident with a car driven by Stephen Nasse. Wilson finished 19th.

Tony Lambert, who formerly headed the Team Bristol Motorsports Busch Series entry, served as the crew chief for Ward.

The 150-lap Frank Kimmel Street Stock event began with a bang, as 15 cars were involved in a crash on the opening lap. The car driven by Gary Davis actually caught on fire after the fuel pump was knocked off, while four other cars suffered damaged radiators. There were seven cautions and four lead changes before the unique halfway stoppage at lap 75.

Saturday was the second race for the Frank Kimmel series event at BMS. A total of 56 cars entered the race, which featured a wild three-wide start.

Chuck Barnes Sr., (Louisville, Ky.) survived the carnage en route to the win while defending race winner Todd Kempf finished second. Brian Bayer, Frank Kimmel II and Chad Hall rounded out the top five.

The 55-year-old Barnes, who qualified 31st, credited his Super Stock experience at high-banked Salem Speedway in Indiana.

“We’ve run at Salem for a long time and won championships up there,” Barnes said. “We’re kind of used to races like this. They start 100 cars at Salem some times for the Halloween race.”

Barnes’ son served as the crew chief and car builder for his father, whose car ended the race with a torn right front fender from the opening lap melee. Barnes also raced in the first Street Stock race at BMS in 2008.

“We got caught up in a little problem on the backstretch in that race, and then came back up to around ninth,” Barnes said. “We had a good idea for what kind of setup we needed for this race from 2008 and from our experience at Salem.”

The Street Stocks cars featured a large clip mounted on the front hood, which served to equalize the field.  Meadowview’s Duke Bare, who has won multiple track titles at Wythe Raceway, was the lone local entrant among the Street Stocks.

The 17-car Charger race was marred by a four-car wreck involving Bristol’s Jenna Wagner early in the event. Wagner was alert after stepping out of her car, but was transported to Bristol Regional Medical Center for observation.

Abingdon’s Kevin Wolfe held off Royce Peters to win his second straight Charger event at BMS.

agregory@bristolnews.com | Twitter: @Greg_BHCSports | (276) 645-2544