Welshan, Cardwell, Blanken, Sise, Walton, Rader, Amarson capture Coca-Cola ‘Fall Brawl’ wins at Volunteer Speedway

BULLS GAP, Tenn. (Nov. 7, 2020) — The calendar shows it to be fall of the year, but first weekend in November felt more like late spring with temperatures in the upper 70s and bright sunny skies Saturday afternoon at Volunteer Speedway for the Coca-Cola “Fall Brawl.” 

 

Jason Welshan of Maryville out-dueled World of Outlaws Late Model Series star Ricky Weiss to capture the $1,000 Crate Late Model feature win in one of the overall most exciting crate races ever at the track.

 

With Volunteer Speedway set to host the $20,000 Crate Late Model National Championship presented by Grassroots Sports TV and sanctioned by the American Crate All-Star Series coming up Thursday through Saturday, Nov. 12-14, a strong field of 28 competitors were in the pits tuning-up for the big show next weekend.

 

Defending American Crate All-Star Series national champion Tyler Arrington set fast-time in qualifying at 13.742 seconds to earn pole position, with Welshan second quickest at 13.828 to nail down the outside front-row starting position.

 

Arrington powered out to the lead on the first lap over Weiss, Welshan, Matt Henderson and Aaron Guinn. Racing into the first turn on lap 4, Weiss executed a slide-job to briefly take the lead away from Arrington. But the pole-sitter battled back on the opposite end of the track to throw a slider of his own to reclaim the lead from Weiss, who also got passed by Welshan. The front-running group of cars quickly caught tail of the field, and tough break for Arrington on lap 6 when Josh Baker spun between turns three and four leaving nowhere for Arrington to go and he also spun to bring out the caution. Instead of going to the rear to restart, Arrington instead chose to pull into the pits and end his hopes of winning.

 

Back under green and Welshan was showing the way out front over Weiss, Henderson, Guinn and Jensen Ford. Some might say racing during the daytime with sun baking down doesn’t produce good racing, but the action back through middle of the field had four-time winner this season Zach Sise, Mack McCarter, Jason Cardwell, Mike Smith, Anthony White, Bryson Dennis, Shannon Emery, Nathan Martin, Ryan King, Tim Maupin, Raymond Nichols and Chris Chandler jockeying for real estate around the high banks running two- and three-wide on occasions.

 

With leader Welshan closing in on the rear of the field to start lapping cars, once he entered traffic Weiss made a move to overtake Welshan for the lead between turns three and four. Weiss appeared to be heading to victory, but it’s never over until it’s over. Caution waved on lap 21 when Chris Raines spun, thus setting the stage for a four-lap sprint to the finish.

 

Welshan anticipated waving of the green entering the front straightaway out in the fourth turn, with some thinking he possibly jumped the start. Welshan pulled to the inside of Weiss racing past the flag stand into the first corner where he drove in deeper than Weiss, sliding up in front of him to take the lead. Welshan went on to record the win over Weiss, with Henderson and McCarter trading some sheet-metal on the last lap and Henderson finishing third, followed by Ford and McCarter. … Completing the top 10 finishers were Guinn, Cardwell, Sise, Smith and White.