Most drivers would be proud to say they won five races ago, but Benny Gordon isn’t like most drivers, and it showed on Thursday night at Shenandoah Speedway.
Gordon, driver of the No. 66 Predator Performance Ford, took the lead from Gary St. Amant on Lap 123 and held off a pesky Jeff Agnew to win the Farmers Food’s 250 presented by 98 ROCK. It was Gordon’s first win since taking the victory at Myrtle Beach Speedway in the Championship Series during the 2005 season.
Howard to take command of the race, building leads of 1.8 seconds over Howard and Jack Bailey.
Gordon would continue to lead until bringing the No. 66 to pit road for service on Lap 105. The Predator Performance team put Gordon back out front of the pitting cars, but Michael Ritch, driver of the No. 28 Jackaroo Ford, and St. Amant elected to pit out-of-sequence and lined at the front of the pack.
Bonny Gordon celebrates with the fans at Shenandoah Speedway. (Kathy bond photos)
Ritch fell out of the race on lap 112 with mechanical failure, handing the lead to St. Amant, driver of the No. 72 JEGS.com Chevy. St. Amant would be no match for Gordon and his fresh BFGoodrich Tires g-Force radials, however. Gordon drove around St. Amant on Lap 122 and led to the finish.
Agnew, driver of the No. 73 Mark IV Honda/Team 7 Pontiac, was able to pull alongside Gordon on several occasions, but the Floyd, Va., driver never could muster enough to oust Gordon from the lead.
“I couldn’t tell who was better,” said Agnew, who won the
A pair of Howards... Shelby (#20) and Woody (#55) race inside the top-five.
“One thing is, we’ve had a fast race car,” said Gordon. “It’s tough when you have a fast car, knowing you could win. I feel like we’ve had a car that could’ve won the last two races, uh, and should have won the last two races. But circumstances didn’t allow us.”
There wasn’t much that was going to stop Gordon on Thursday night.
After a Woody Howard, driver of the No. 55 Dean Motorsports Chevy, slipped around Gordon, who won the Advance Auto Parts Pole Award, on the opening lap, the defending Northern Division champion’s car sprang to life after about 40 laps. On Lap 56, Gordon swept around
last Northern Division event. “One time, we’d get a run on him. Then, he’d run off and leave us. I don’t know if he was playing. We just didn’t have the car we had at [Lonesome Pine].”
Bailey, driver of the No. 93 Ferguson Waterworks/RHR Ford, continued his impressive streak by finishing third.
Shelby Howard, driver of the No. 20 Tony Stewart’s Original Bar-B-Que Sauce Pontiac, kept his top-10 streak alive with a fourth-place finish.
