Dirt Racing’s Winning Moment: Fair Bluff, N.C.’s Dean Bowen led all 20 laps of Wednesday night’s (Feb. 22) 602 late model feature at Fayetteville Motor Speedway, the opening event of North Carolina Speedweek, surviving a slew of mid-race restarts that saw him keep crate racing powerhouse Cody Overton at bay.
Bowen made a point to thank his wife in victory lane, stating she lets him keep racing while he’s getting old against kids that are “YOUNG!”
Dirt Racing’s Dramatic Moment: “Ice Cream Man” Parker Daniel spun out while part of a three-wide battle for the lead around the late model feature’s midpoint, an incident that took him from contention for the night and also marred the best chance any driver had at toppling polesitter Bowen for the victory.
What Dirt Racing Fans’ll Be Group Chatting About This Morning
Anyone that’s planning on visiting Fayetteville Motor Speedway over the course of North Carolina Speedweek is hoping and praying that the track widens out more than it did this Wednesday. Every single heat and feature race run by the 602 modifieds and late models were won from the pole Wednesday night.
Of course, I’d argue part of that is due to a race format that featured shockingly short five-lap heat races for both the late models and modifieds. Considering these are crate engine cars that frankly resemble restrictor-plate cars of old in terms of acceleration, five laps is barely enough to get the cars actually up to full race speed.
Former Truck Series regular Austin Wayne Self raced in Wednesday’s modified feature at Fayetteville in a No. 23 car. That same feature was won by Buck Stevens, who was driving a No. 23 car painted in the AM Racing scheme that Self used to run in truck competition. Translation: the race-winning driver was misidentified during his victory lane interview.
For a more detailed look at how Self did (and another NASCAR regular in the field) be sure to check out our newest Monday feature next week, Daytona to Dirt.
It wasn’t nearly as desolate an experience as my sole visit to Kansas Speedway was in 2019, where it seemed there were more closed concession and souvenir stands for the Saturday night race than there were open ones, but it’s always a letdown to show up to a racetrack that’s open for business with a closed concession stand. Especially when the PA at Fayetteville is hyping up loaded nachos that those of us in the stands couldn’t…
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