The nation's best dirt late model teams are at Batesville Motor Speedway this weekend, and at least for one night, Stacy Taylor showed that his could outperform them all.
Taylor, an electrical contractor from Jacksonville, set fast time in time trials and won his heat during Friday's qualifying night of the 22nd annual Comp Cams Topless 100. The performance allowed him to secure the pole position for the 100-lap, $40,000-to-win main event, which was held late Saturday night.
"We didn't know we were going to be that good," Taylor told DirtOnDirt.com. "We practiced [Thursday night], and the car was real good. [Then] we got lucky."
In the afternoon pill draw to determine qualifying order, Taylor drew the No. 1 pill and was the first car out for time trials. He set quick time among the 62 cars at the event, turning a lap around the 3/8-mile oval in 13.554 seconds at an average speed of 99.602 mph.
While Taylor may have had an advantage during time trials as track conditions deteriorate with each lap turned, there was no such edge during his 20-lap heat race, which actually determined if he would advance to the main event.
Taylor and outside polesitter Jeremy Payne of Springfield, Mo., raced side by side during the early portion of the heat before Taylor settled into the lead on lap 4. He was then challenged for the lead by Jimmy Owens of Newport, Tenn., the 2009 Topless winner and the three-time defending Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series national champion.
"I could see [on the track's scoreboard] that he was behind us," Taylor said. "And actually, I expected to see him because I was having problems. I didn't know, so I just run it as hard as I could. But after the race, they told us we had a few [car lengths] on him. So the car was pretty good."
The biggest surprise of qualifying came in the second heat when four-time winner Scott Bloomquist of Mooresburg, Tenn., broke a front-right shock absorber while leading, ending his night. Bloomquist, who has 10 career top-five finishes in the event, had to race in one of Saturday night's last-chance qualifiers.
In recent years, Taylor has been an infrequent regional competitor at best, but he has alway performed well at Batesville. Saturday night marked his seventh Topless 100 start with his best finish being 12th in 2002. He also set quick time at the 2002 Topless. 14.603 seconds (92.447 mph).
He was a semi-regular during the early years of the Mid-America Racing Series, taking four career victories in the series -- at Bolivar, Mo. (2005), Malden, Mo. (2001) and Batesville (2002, 2000). But he has raced in only a handful of events this season.
For Saturday night's feature, he was joined on the front row by Brian Birkhofer of Muscatine, Iowa. Other heat race winners were Don O'Neal of Martinsville, Ind., Jonathan Davenport of Blairsville, Ga., 1998 winner Wendell Wallace of Batesville and fourt-time winner Billy Moyer of Batesville.
Also locking up spots in the spots in the main event Friday night were Owens, John Blankenship of Williamson, W.Va., Mike Marlar of Winfield, Tenn., 2007 winner Jimmy Mars of Menomonie, Wis., 2004 winner Dale McDowell of Chickamauga, Ga., 2003 winner Shannon Babb of Moweaqua, Ill., Batesville's Billy Moyer Jr., Bub McCool of Vicksburg, Miss., 2012 winner Steve Francis of Ashland, Ky., defending champion Terry Phillips of Springfield, Mo., Chris Brown of Spring, Texas, and 2010 winner Jared Landers of Batesville.
Sports on 08/17/2014