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Alberson becomes first-time winner at Volusia, as local racers shut out of top 10

By Spence Smithback
World of Outlaws

BARBERVILLE, FL (January 25) - For the first time in his career, Garrett Alberson elected to include Volusia Speedway Park on his early-season itinerary. And after two nights of action, he’s already fallen in love with the “World’s Fastest Half Mile.”

After an exhilarating late-race tussle, the Las Cruces, NM driver won for the first time with the World of Outlaws Late Models and bagged the $20,000 top prize in Saturday’s DIRTcar Sunshine Nationals finale.

“It’s huge for the team,” Alberson said. “This is what I’ve wanted to do my whole life. Just to be a contender in Late Model racing, it’s super cool.”

Of those upper Midwestern drivers in the evening’s finale, Dustin Sorensen was the highest finishing WISSOTA-area open Late Model racer, placing 21st. Brent Larson was 23rd. No other WISSOTA-local drivers qualified for A-main action.

Alberson began the 50-lap affair in the third starting spot behind two of dirt Late Model racing’s all-time greats – Jimmy Owens and Jonathan Davenport. Owens broke away to the early lead, while a slow start for Davenport allowed Alberson to climb to second exiting turn two on the first lap.

Owens looked to have the dominant car early on, but Alberson kept the gap within a second until lap 14. Nick Hoffman’s run of misfortune continued for the second-straight night with a flat left-front tire, bringing out the caution.

On the ensuing restart, Alberson briefly lost second to Tyler Erb but regained the spot when the No. 1T slid up and out of the groove in turn two just before halfway.

After a caution due to a spinning Brent Larson, Alberson got his first look at the lead as he went three-wide down the backstretch with Owens and Max Blair for the top spot. Owens won that battle, but Alberson wasn’t keen on letting him get away. Following a handful of attempts, Alberson threw a slider and made it stick to take the lead for the first time with eight to go.

“Jimmy got out there really good early, but I could pace him and kind of run down the track a little bit,” Alberson said. “I knew once we got clean air there, I was going to be okay. I could make really good speed in the top, my right-front was giving up a little bit getting tight like everybody else.”

When it looked like Alberson was driving away to a comfortable victory, Brian Shirley slowed on the frontstretch to set up a three-lap dash to the checkers. For Alberson, the path to his first World of Outlaws win was simple – hold off the highly decorated Davenport.

Half a lap after the restart, Davenport slid up in front of Alberson before the No. 58 crossed him back exiting turn four. “Superman” tried the same move in the next set of corners, but Alberson once again had the momentum on exit to prevail. One more perfect lap later, Alberson crossed the line to become the 102nd feature winner in series history and first from the state of New Mexico.

“Man, that restart got wild,” Alberson said. “JD and I were throwing slide jobs there at the end, hopefully it was all clean and everything. Man, this is awesome.”

For Davenport, his maiden Sunshine Nationals appearance wrapped up with his second runner-up in as many nights. With a weekend of consistent speed at Volusia under their belts, the No. 49 team will be among the favorites when the Series returns to the track in February for the DIRTcar Nationals.

“I thought I’d make him earn it anyway,” Davenport said. “I didn’t think I could get to him, but I found a line that I could slide across him through [turns] one and two, really stuck until we could exit.

“Garrett pushed a little off of [turn] two, so I said, ‘Might as well try it.’ But I bottomed out when I went to slide him and got a little more sideways than I wanted to so I wouldn’t clear him and not hit him. That put me a little bit out of the ballpark, and then he got another run on me. From then, I was just trying to break his momentum.”

Rounding out the podium was the No. 111 of Blair, who spent the entirety of the second half of the feature lurking in the top five. After his Friday feature came to an early end with a lap one incident, the third-place run was just what the doctor ordered for the Centerline Motorsports team.

“I think we had speed all weekend,” Blair said. “The race track was awesome tonight; I can’t say enough about how much work they put into getting something like this to race on. Minus one little bump into turn three, I don’t know if it could have been any better.”

Devin Moran drove from 15th up to fourth while Owens fell to fifth at the finish.

Lake Elmo’s Matthew Larson entered competition in the CRUSA Late Models, but did not qualify for the feature.

SUMMARY

World of Outlaws Late Models:

Feature (50 Laps): 1. 58-Garrett Alberson[3]; 2. 49D-Jonathan Davenport[2]; 3. 111-Max Blair[7]; 4. 99-Devin Moran[15]; 5. 20-Jimmy Owens[1]; 6. 32-Bobby Pierce[17]; 7. 1T-Tyler Erb[4]; 8. 71-Hudson O'Neal[22]; 9. 1-Brandon Sheppard[23]; 10. 9-Nick Hoffman[5]; 11. 2-Cody Overton[6]; 12. 74X-Ethan Dotson[18]; 13. 97-Cade Dillard[25]; 14. 96-Tanner English[14]; 15. 22*-Drake Troutman[27]; 16. 40B-Kyle Bronson[9]; 17. 28-Dennis Erb Jr[26]; 18. 19R-Ryan Gustin[16]; 19. 20RT-Ricky Thornton Jr[24]; 20. 16-Tyler Bruening[19]; 21. 19-Dustin Sorensen[20]; 22. 22-Daniel Hilsabeck[8]; 23. B1-Brent Larson[28]; 24. 3S-Brian Shirley[13]; 25. 20TC-Tristan Chamberlain[29]; 26. 14W-Dustin Walker[30]; 27. 9M-Tim McCreadie[11]; 28. 44-Chris Madden[12]; 29. 76-Brandon Overton[21]; 30. 157-Mike Marlar[10]

Heat 1 (8 Laps): 1. 9-Nick Hoffman[1]; 2. 111-Max Blair[3]; 3. 3S-Brian Shirley[4]; 4. 16-Tyler Bruening[2]; 5. 97-Cade Dillard[5]; 6. 71-Hudson O'Neal[8]; 7. 12-Ashton Winger[9]; 8. 93-Carson Ferguson[10]; 9. 17SS-Brenden Smith[7]; 10. 81J-Dale McDowell[6]

Heat 2 (8 Laps): 1. 2-Cody Overton[1]; 2. 40B-Kyle Bronson[5]; 3. 99-Devin Moran[2]; 4. 99B-Boom Briggs[8]; 5. 81-Jason Riggs[4]; 6. B1-Brent Larson[6]; 7. 23-Beckham Malone[9]; 8. 388-Jackson Hise[7]; 9. 11-Austin Smith[3]; 10. 14W-Dustin Walker[10]

Heat 3 (8 Laps): 1. 20-Jimmy Owens[2]; 2. 9M-Tim McCreadie[4]; 3. 32-Bobby Pierce[1]; 4. 19-Dustin Sorensen[6]; 5. 22*-Drake Troutman[8]; 6. 28-Dennis Erb Jr[3]; 7. 93L-Cory Lawler[7]; 8. 109-Nick Johnson[9]; 9. 76N-Blair Nothdurft[5]

Heat 4 (8 Laps): 1. 1T-Tyler Erb[2]; 2. 22-Daniel Hilsabeck[6]; 3. 96-Tanner English[1]; 4. 1-Brandon Sheppard[4]; 5. 75-Daniel Adam[3]; 6. 7-Ross Robinson[8]; 7. 49-Jake Timm[7]; 8. 99JR-Frank Heckenast Jr[10]; 9. 17Z-Seth Zacharias[9]; 10. 18D-Daulton Wilson[5]

Heat 5 (8 Laps): 1. 58-Garrett Alberson[1]; 2. 157-Mike Marlar[5]; 3. 19R-Ryan Gustin[6]; 4. 76-Brandon Overton[3]; 5. 20RT-Ricky Thornton Jr[4]; 6. 59M-Trey Mills[9]; 7. 5-Mark Whitener[2]; 8. 43-Derrick Stewart[7]; 9. 28B-Carson Brown[8]

Heat 6 (8 Laps): 1. 49D-Jonathan Davenport[1]; 2. 44-Chris Madden[4]; 3. 74X-Ethan Dotson[2]; 4. 20TC-Tristan Chamberlain[5]; 5. 8-Dillon McCowan[3]; 6. 60-Dan Ebert[8]; 7. 59-Dillard Hatchett[9]; 8. 09-Michael Leach[6]; 9. 11B-Stacy Boles[7]

B Feature 1 (10 Laps): 1. 16-Tyler Bruening[1]; 2. 71-Hudson O'Neal[5]; 3. 99B-Boom Briggs[2]; 4. 93-Carson Ferguson[9]; 5. B1-Brent Larson[6]; 6. 97-Cade Dillard[3]; 7. 388-Jackson Hise[10]; 8. 12-Ashton Winger[7]; 9. 81-Jason Riggs[4]; 10. 23-Beckham Malone[8]; 11. 81J-Dale McDowell[13]; 12. 14W-Dustin Walker[14]; 13. 11-Austin Smith[12]; 14. (DNS) 17SS-Brenden Smith

B Feature 2 (10 Laps): 1. 19-Dustin Sorensen[1]; 2. 1-Brandon Sheppard[2]; 3. 7-Ross Robinson[6]; 4. 22*-Drake Troutman[3]; 5. 28-Dennis Erb Jr[5]; 6. 49-Jake Timm[8]; 7. 99JR-Frank Heckenast Jr[10]; 8. 18D-Daulton Wilson[13]; 9. 75-Daniel Adam[4]; 10. 93L-Cory Lawler[7]; 11. 76N-Blair Nothdurft[11]; 12. 17Z-Seth Zacharias[12]; 13. 109-Nick Johnson[9]

B Feature 3 (10 Laps): 1. 76-Brandon Overton[1]; 2. 20RT-Ricky Thornton Jr[3]; 3. 20TC-Tristan Chamberlain[2]; 4. 8-Dillon McCowan[4]; 5. 59M-Trey Mills[5]; 6. 5-Mark Whitener[7]; 7. 43-Derrick Stewart[9]; 8. 60-Dan Ebert[6]; 9. 59-Dillard Hatchett[8]; 10. 09-Michael Leach[10]; 11. 28B-Carson Brown[11]; 12. (DNS) 11B-Stacy Boles

CRUSA Late Models:

Feature (30 Laps): 1. 00-Ethan Wilson[10]; 2. 5-Mark Whitener[13]; 3. 2C-Zack Carley[21]; 4. 28-Jake Rainey[14]; 5. 18X-Michael Page[27]; 6. 86-Wil Herrington[35]; 7. 49-Mario Gresham[22]; 8. 7-Corey Neil Jr[15]; 9. 111-Demetrios Drellos[6]; 10. 99-Kyle Hardy[11]; 11. 16S-Sam Seawright[3]; 12. 31S-Tim Swartz[32]; 13. 126-Kaede Loudy[17]; 14. 16-Caleb Gay[30]; 15. 721-Mikey Kopka[20]; 16. 67S-Garret Stewart[28]; 17. USA1-Jimmy Thomas[33]; 18. 44P-Kole Platt[1]; 19. 52-Cody Karl[29]; 20. 4G-Kale Green[26]; 21. 611-Koulten Herbert[34]; 22. 24-Payton Stevenson[36]; 23. (DNF) 07-Hayden Cardwell[2]; 24. (DNF) 2S-Layton Sullivan[19]; 25. (DNF) 00M-Monte Skinner[31]; 26. (DNF) 6-Dillon Brown[5]; 27. (DNF) 21-Nathan Bray[23]; 28. (DNF) 7T-Tyler Thomason[9]; 29. (DNF) 7J-Dalton Jacobs[4]; 30. (DNF) 35-Christian Augspurger[24]; 31. (DNF) 23-Toby Sims[7]; 32. (DNF) 69-Wyatt Boyd[12]; 33. (DNF) 17C-Jamie Maurice[8]; 34. (DNF) 12C-Chase Giddens[16]; 35. (DNF) 18B-Austin Yarbrough[18]; 36. (DNF) 515-Bubba Roling[25]