From David Sink
PINELLAS PARK, Fl. (March 23, 2019) — Troy DeCaire captured the Southern Sprint Car Shootout Series event Saturday night at Showtime Speedway in Pinellas Park, Florida in thrilling fashion. It was his second consecutive SSSS victory of 2019.
It didn’t appear a victory was in the works for DeCaire as he was involved in a second lap 5 care pile-up and had to restart at the back of the pack of the 40-lap feature. In addition, he narrowly missed getting collected in a mishap at the start finish line on the start when Joey Aguilar ran over the left rear tire of Phil Haddad sending Aguilar pointing skyward. Miraculously, Aguilar landed on all for wheels and continued.
DeCaire found his groove and began to work his way to the front of the field as the laps counted down. With one lap left, DeCaire caught race leader Mickey Kempgens, who had led since the outset. As Kempgens encounter two slower lapped cars, DeCaire made a thrilling pass on Kempgens for the lead entering turn three, the two made contact, sending DeCaire through the grass. He miraculously kept control but crossed the finish line first despite running through the infield grass. DeCaire’s winning car finally cam to a stop in the grass in turn one to complete one of the most spectacular finishes seen in SSSS competition in some time.
“I think the start was as confusing as the finish was” explained DeCaire in victory lane.” We couldn’t seem to get through turn number one for ten different tries it felt like. Once it started, I was able to get into second pretty quick and chased Mickey down. It seemed like every time I got to him there was some sorta lapped traffic. The flagman showed two to go and I was about eight or nine car lengths back. You can’t take the tires home at that point so I ran as hard as I could for two laps and was able to close the gap. I closed the gap and he seemed to make the wrong decision going into one. A lapped car went to the middle and it allowed me to pull up behind him. I shot the bottom and got him in three. Mickey caught me in the tail, and I tried to peddle it as best as I could. I tried to slow it down before I hit a couple light poles, but I beat him to the line. It was a good show with all the chaos. Sometimes it works out. Sometimes you the bug sometimes you’re the windshield. That was my first pass in the grass to win a race. A little Davey Allison and Dale Earnhardt throwback.
Southern Sprintcar Shootout
Showtime Speedway
Pinellas Park, FL
Saturday March 23, 2019
Feature:
1. 36 – Troy DeCaire
2. 5 – Mickey Kempgens
3. 18 – Shane Butler
4. 555 – Dylan Reynolds
5. 11 – Joey Aguilar
6. 0 – Daniel Miller
7. 7 – Keith Butler
8. 88 – Sport Allen
9. 13 – Chaz HambUng
10. J1 – Michael Tharp
11. 42 – Phil Haddad
12. 3 – Travis BUemeister
13. 1 – Clayton Donaldson
14. 8 – Garrett Green
15. 59X – John Inman