It’s interesting to note that among the entire field of 11 American Iron cars, only one was a Chevrolet. It’s also interesting to note where that car finished, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
Terry Mathis started from pole in his 2002 Chevrolet Camaro ahead of Todd Nunn in a Fox-body notch-back Mustang and Jimmy Bost in his 2011 Ford Mustang GT.
Mathis jumped out front to an early lead, but a black flag came out when Elliott Fisher and Team Sarsfeld Racing collided between turns 3 and 4. When the race resumed, Mathis again got the jump, but a double yellow came out at lap five and bunched the field up again.
The race resumed again and this time it stayed green till the end, and in the end it was Mathis finishing where he started, the lone bowtie in a field of blue ovals. Had the race gone one a few laps more, he might not have been able to hold the lead.
“The car was great yesterday. We made no changes,” Mathis said. “It went real loose today, real loose in the rear end in slow turns. We just changed tires. Evidently with that set of tires, it didn’t like what I had, so I had to be real careful with it, but other than that, we just did the best we could to hold him off and go with it. The cautions kind of pulled us back a little, but we’re happy to be here.”
Toward the end, Todd Nunn was nipping at Mathis’ bumper, and he might have been able to catch him, but in the end, Nunn was glad to hold onto second.
“It was a good race,” Nunn said. “The yellows let some of the guys catch up to me, so I had to watch front and back. I could catch Terry in the turns and he’d leave me in the straightaways.”
Steve Nichols, who started from fourth overcame his starting position to finish third.
“There were some other cars that weren’t in our class, that were in the mix and gave us a little bit of trouble out there,” Nichols said. “But we got around them and it was really good. I had a spoiler dragging the whole time. I’m not sure how it happened. I think one time I might have tried a short cut through the grass. I heard it dragging the whole time, so I’m happy with a third-place finish.”
