Justin Mitchell Wins The Battle While Rusty Daniels Wins The War In Southern National Spring Finale

LUCAMA, N.C. — Justin Mitchell led all 75 laps in the KONI Charger finale at Southern National Motorsports Park on Saturday, but Rusty Daniels clinched the championship with a third place finish.

The championship is Daniels’ first at Southern National, and etched him not just into speedway history, but Eastern North Carolina.  His KONI Charger championship comes a year after he won the track championship at Carteret, adding to his titles at East Carolina Motor Speedway and Coastal Plains Raceway in the 2000s.

“We’ve raced for this for a lot of years and just come up short,” Daniels said.  “We just had a really good year this year, won four races and several top-2 and top-3s.  Just can’t thank the racetrack enough.  We’re going to take a break here and come back and do so more racing.  Andy and Donna Smith, Davis Renfrow’s crew, Kyle, Jennifer, Luke, my wife, my little girl Summer, my son Zach, all our sponsors, just can’t thank everybody enough who helps us on this thing.”

Daniels struggled throughout the afternoon with his car, saying there was some residual damage from an incident in the most recent race he ran at Carteret County Speedway.

Kenly’s Michael Sliger took home the championship in the Any Car division – his first championship of any kind in his short racing career.

“It’s unreal,” Sliger said.  “Man, it’s awesome.  We strived for this since the first car we built and the first time we raced on this track.  We knew coming in that we had a really good chance.  James [Barbour] definitely didn’t make this easy, especially after watching him last week at Coastal Plains.  I was worrying all week about him.  Luckily we got the pole tonight.  We got passed by Andrew but we kept [Barbour] behind us.  It’s just unreal.”

25 years after winning the Late Model track championship at Southern National, Billy Ray Lucas was back in victory lane as a champion at Southern National – this time in Vintage Sportsman competition.

“I really had a fun time,” Lucas said after the race.  “You never know when this is the last one.  I don’t know.  I did the best I could.  Half of my crew’s gone.  They passed away so I’ve got two of the original crew left.  And one of them, Greg Creech, he almost passed away.  I just had to do it one more time with the Vintage cars.  I have a 1957 Chevrolet, that’s the year I was born, so it’s come full circle.  I’m not going to promise you I’m going to do a series again.  One or two more races and then I’m done with it.”

Joe Seeger clinched the Vintage Modified championship in a car that pays tribute to Modified racing legend Richie Evans.

“It was a blast to drive that car,” Seeger said.  “I appreciate them putting on a show for the fans and the Vintage Modifieds here, it was nice to race with the boys.  I like driving that car.  It’s a tribute car, but very fast.  Got a couple hundred laps under my belt and I’m proud to be a champion in this series.  Very hard work, me and my brother in the garage, and it was nice.”

Levi Canup had already clinched the Legends division championship prior to Saturday and did not compete in a race won by Brody Rhodes.

With the spring season coming to a close, Southern National will take a brief hiatus before firing the engines back up.

Legends, Bandoleros and Any Cars will compete on Saturday, July 18 and Sunday, July 19.  The Saturday, July 18 race will be a “Roval” event for all three divisions while Sunday, July 19 will take place on the oval.

The Premier Mega Trucks return on Saturday, August 15 at the mud track at Southern National.  Then the Road to the Classic will be held on Saturday, September 19 and Saturday, October 31.  The 26th Thanksgiving Classic will be held from Friday, November 27 through Sunday, November 29.