(June 21, 2008) After six second-place finishes this season at Deep South Speedway, Satsuma’s Ryan Little, driving his blue #97 Little’s Auto Sales sponsored Camaro, captured the checkers Saturday night in a hard fought battle from his 5^th-place starting spot. Little took the lead from last week’s winner Monte Skinner after several laps of side-by-side racing and cruise to the victory in the GM Performance Crate Late Model event.

Skinner used his outside pole starting position to grab the lead from pole-sitter Nathan Ingersall and led the first several circuits around the big 4/10 mile clay oval. The track offered definitely two grooves this night as the middle groove was riddled with some rutting that hampered many of the racers. Skinner chose the high side and powered around the facility in command until the #97 of Little, who had relentlessly pursued the inside line lap after lap, eventually took advantage of a slip by Skinner and never looked back. Little then drove a flawless race as he opened up a straight-a-way lead over hard-charging Larry Cifra in his #11 Warrior by Todd Morrow machine., Cifra, who had started in the rear of the field, worked his way to the front by lap 20 and was trying to run down Little but the checkers for this night belonged to the young gun Ryan Little. Ingersall would salvage a 3^rd place finish while early leader Skinner slipped to 4^th.

The Stinger division saw 13 cars show up to put on a show for the crowd as the #48G of Gary Watson shifted his way to the checkers. The Spanish Fort driver has a couple of wins and quite a few seconds to Jamie Mozingo, the second place finisher, but Watson proved he had what it takes to beat Mozingo from the drop of the green flag. Watson made a power move down the front stretch at the drop of the green as he never lifted through the turns 1 and 2, taking the high side and leaving the field wondering what happened. He stayed on the top side and showed the fans why he is so good at this speedway leading every lap of the feature. Mozingo tried to make ground up off turn 2 but Watson was strong off 2 and the momentum carried him to the checkers. John Germanski, Sr. finished a respectable 3^rd while the #21 of Ken Osborne finished 4^th and Brian McCreary in his #31 coming to the stripe in 5^th.

Hobby Stock driver Steven Allday fought his way to another victory and it was not an easy one as he had to contend with the powerful Monte Carlos of Derick Johnson, Josh Howell, Joseph Adams, Shannon Hodges and John Boyd as they all were in contention to lead or win the spectacular race. Allday, driving his #27 Boothe Septic Service sponsored Monte Carlo, had to drive almost perfect laps every circuit as the field was close every lap. Allday prevailed for the win followed by the #55 of Josh Howell in second and Johnson in 3^rd. John Boyd and Joseph Adams both had mechanical issues during the race which eliminated them from a threat to win, Shannon Hodges pulled of a 4^th place finish with the #15 of Charles Jones rounding out the top 5.

The modified feature saw Greg Hopkins power his Shaw car out to the lead through turns 1 & 2 while Don Livingston and Randy Booker were in tow and side-by-side. Hopkins seemed to almost have his rocket-ship up on one wheel through turn 1 as he fought to maintain the lead from the hard-charging Livingston and Booker. Then on lap 6, Hopkins slowed through turns 1 and 2 and seemingly not knowing how close his pursuers were to him, he chose to stay in the groove and coast through turn 2 down the back straight. He was off the back straight wall about a car width when Randy Booker and Don Livingston, who were engaged in a ferocious, side-by-side battle for second, ran into the rear-end of Hopkins who sat helplessly in the back stretch. Booker went high and hit the rear of Hopkins as he started up the back wall; eventually landing in the front of the Hi-Rev sponsored #25 of Hopkins. The race was red-flagged until the cars could be removed and amazingly, the #31 of Livingston was able to resume in the lead, often scraping the outside retaining wall with showers of sparks flying. Livingston then lost control off turn three after a restart the race, allowing the #777 of Buster Foley to take the lead for a couple of turns until he seemed to slip and let Livingston back into the lead. The #25B of Michael Booker and the #1 of Brandon Dortch were also in the fray as either of these guys could have won. Livingston, driving his modified from Mary Ester, FL, took his first win in 12 years as he powered his mount to the checkers ahead of the #25B of Michael Booker, Dortch and Foley followed with Ronnie Jordan, Jr. finishing 5^th. Randy Booker, after several laps down for repairs, got his modified back together and was able to manage a 10^th place finish.

The Super Hobby cars brought the crowd to their feet as the T69 of Alan Taylor and the #35 of Bradley Rhodes, driven by his father Michael Rhodes, put on a spectacular race from lap one until the checkered flag finally fell for Taylor. Taylor started inside pole as the elder Rhodes started outside pole. Taylor had the lead driving into turn one and Rhodes took the lead off turn 2, and it would go that way for several laps. Taylor finally made a daring flat-footed pass on the outside retaining wall through turns 1 & 2 to pass Rhodes for the win. Rhodes settled for second as Greg Tuberville, last weeks feature winner, brought the Derick Johnson sponsored machine to the stripe in 3^rd. The 57 of Aubrey Morris was 4^th and the #04 of Travis Bonner was 5^th.

The Vintage feature was exciting from the drop of the green flag as the legends on steroids swapped the lead several times each lap. Chris Bahai, driving the #12 car and the T69 of Mark Taylor, driven by Alan Taylor, were door handle to door handle and swapped the lead several time the opening laps until Taylor drifted too high in turn 3 and smacked the wall. Bahai led many laps after that and seemed to be cruising to a victory when mechanical woes dropped him back to a 6^th place finish. It would be the blue and yellow Citronelle warrior Billy Boothe who would emerge as the strongest competitor of the night, leading only the final 4 laps for the win. Boothe made a power move after a restart to zoom past Bahai with Ansel Reed in tow. Reed would finish 2^nd with Tom Lohr finishing 3^rd in his #97 mount. The red #25 of Jay Coleman would cross in 4^th and Jody Beech in the green #21 was 5^th.

The Limited Sportsman feature saw Sean Goodwin in his #36 machine take advantage of a late race caution to beat Bret Henderson to the checkers for the win. Henderson, driving the Jerry Schoen owned K7 Camaro, lead most of the feature but slipped on the restart allowing the Camaro of Goodwin to slip by for the win. Chuck Moore in his Chuck’s Transmission #88 was third followed to the stripe by Ronnie Jordan, Sr. in his #22X and Jim Click in his #45.