7/14

Chris Madden continued his dominance of Ray Cook's Southern Nationals by winning the opener at Wythe. I don't really like the format for the Southern Nationals races. The top ten guys in time trials are automatically locked into the feature and they start heads up from that. It typically leads to the fast timer leading every lap of the feature and Madden led every lap of the 35 lapper at Wythe last night after setting fast time and starting on the pole. Rambo Franklin came home in second, Brandon Kinzer was third. A couple of local guys made the trip down. Brian Booze, who ran the Southern Nationals last year and ran pretty good, and D.J. Myers, who has been traveling more since hooking up with Greg Gunter as his car owner. Neither of them faired too well though. Booze came home in 14th after time trialing and starting the feature from 6th, and Myers came home in 18th. Not a good night for the local guys. I would expect that Booze will stay out on the Southern Nationals like he did last year, but Myers will probably come back home. I could be wrong though. I would like to see Myers stay out there for at least a couple more races and then come back to Winchester on Saturday night for the Paul Johnson Memorial. Madden's win, and Eric Jacobsen's 6th place run continue to show how strong those Bloomquist Race Cars really are.