A dream start to the season for Cody Kelley at Florence Motor Speedway continued on Saturday afternoon with a third consecutive victory and one that came in a 75 lapper that went green-to-checkered without a single stoppage.
Kelley won both halves of a Twin 40 on April 15 and then survived an engine protest by Matt Cox afterwards. On Saturday, he again bested Cox over a 75-lap run and earned a handshake from his rival following this latest triumph.
“Man, I don’t even know what to say,” Kelley said. “We battled this thing all day today in practice and didn’t expect to be here, but we worked hard and got this thing hooked up.”
Cox led the field to green, but Kelley took the lead on Lap 7 and never looked back. The race was won over the final 15 minutes in deep lap traffic with Kelley navigating the slower cars better than his closest pursuers.
“This car was really good tonight, I can’t thank Travis and Trent Owens enough for their work on it,” Kelley added. “JJ, Uncle Bobby and George, Stevie. Everyone who helps out. I can’t thank them enough.”
Cox had one shot at Kelley near halfway, and it resulted in contact that changed the feel of his car the rest of the way.
“They were hooked up for sure,” Cox said. “So, congrats to them. We’re pretty decent. About halfway, we got a good run on them and came together and got into the wall off (Turn) 2 and the way it landed on the left front knocked the steering wheel off a little bit, made us tight.
“We’re getting it better and we’ll go back and see if we can make it even faster.”
Meanwhile, Lanie Buice added another podium to continue a run of success last time out that included finishes of third and fourth in the Twin 40s.
“It was about the same as the last race, we still have some work to do and I’m excited to see what more we can get out of it,” Buice said.
The Florence Motor Speedway season continues on May 13 on the same weekend the NASCAR Cup Series are at nearby Darlington Raceway.
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