Jimmy Owens Wins His Second COMP Cams® Topless 100 At Batesville Motor Speedway
Locust Grove, AR–Jimmy Owens, the Tennessee native known as “the Newport Nightmare,” took home a $40,000 check from Batesville Motor Speedway on Saturday night, August 16, as he held off the hard-charging Dale McDowell and Jonathan Davenport to win the 22nd Annual COMP Cams® Topless 100.
Jimmy Owens and his No. 20 team were among 63 competitors signed in to do battle on the ultra-fast Batesville Motor Speedway for the 2014 edition of the unique Topless 100 weekend. Owens, the three-time defending Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series (LOLMDS) Champion and 2009 Topless 100 winner, moved from the seventh-starting position to take his second win in the crown-jewel event as he passed Don O’Neal with just 19 laps remaining. The victory not only added to Owens’ trophy collection and bank account, it also further extended his point lead over O’Neal in the yearlong LOLMDS standings.
With so many quality teams on hand, just making the 28-carTopless 100 field was an accomplishment. In addition to the regular crop of LOLMDS contenders, this year the event was co-sanctioned by the COMP Cams® Super Dirt Series, which added over a dozen top teams to the entry list.
Stacy Taylor set the fast time in Friday night’s qualifying session with a lap of 13.554 seconds on the 3/8-mile track, and by virtue of the re-draw found himself starting on the pole alongside Brian Birkhofer for Saturday’s 100-lap A-Main. Taylor led the first ten circuits of the feature event before being overtaken byO’Neal. O’Neal then held off all challengers while Owens worked his way forward and eventually drew even with the leader. Owens completedthe winning pass in turn four on lap 81 and cruised to the victory, despite McDowell and Davenport making significant gains in the closing segment of the race to finish second and third, respectively. Meanwhile, Dirt Late Model Hall of Famer Scott Bloomquist needed a provisional starting spot and rolled off 23rd, but sliced through the field to come home fourth. O’Neal faded during the last 20 circuits to round out the top five.
“I tried a couple of times to get by Don, but he held his line and raced us clean; I just got a run on him and we were fortunate enough to clear him,” Owens said in Victory Lane. “We are pretty excited to win in front of such a large crowd and thanks to COMP Cams® for sponsoring this race.”
The race featured three lead changes, was slowed by seven caution flags and was completed in 50 minutes and 43 seconds. The 23rd edition of the COMP Cams® Topless 100 is already slated for the third weekend of August 2015.
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