Turner Brown debuts in Pensacola with Pro Late Model win; Finch wins Championship

Turner Brown led the final 25 laps in Pensacola after taking the lead away from Dustin Smith on the race’s final restart. Behind Brown, Jake Finch finished second and claimed the 2026 Allen Turner Pro Late Model Series Championship while Smith held on to finish third after having led 75 of the race’s 100 laps.

Who is Turner Brown? New to the Deep South racing scene, the 15 year old hails from Alamo, California and is driving for the Preston Peltier owned P1 Racing. He has a knack for winning in debut races.

Brown has already turned heads this year, winning in the CARS Tour Northwest Pro Late Model Shootout 100 at Evergreen Speedway in August. There, he overcame spinning on Lap 2, then passing NASCAR veteran Kevin Harvick with 34 laps to go en route to the win. He was his first ever Pro Late Model start.

In Pensacola, Brown was impressive during the weekend’s practice sessions. In the race, Brown patiently worked his way towards the front, and was catching leader Smith at the lap 75 caution. On the restart, Brown won the race to Turn 1, and set sail from there, claiming his first win at Five Flags in his first start at the famed oval.

“It was good,” Brown said. “We had the caution with 25 laps to go and was just slowly working my way up, but saving my tire, hooking the yellow line, making sure I’m not using up the right front or the rear. We ran 50 laps green after the first caution competition came out and I knew this was my time to pounce on him. I got a nice over under in one and two and was able to just drive away from there after was just saving my stuff.”

Brown enjoyed his first experience at Five Flags Speedway, but already has his sight’s set on the bigger prize come December.

“Yeah, I love it,” he said. “I mean, it’s definitely a driver’s track. It’s a beast to tame, it’s tough, tough on tires. It’s all of it. It’s a great experience to come down here and compete and I’m excited to hopefully come back in December.”

Dustin Smith started this Pro Late Model race from the outside of row one and was leading by the completion of Lap 1. He went on to lead the next 75 laps of the race, his only challenge coming from eventual race winner Brown. The Mobile Speedway Champion fell back to third at the finish.

“I felt like we rode,” Smith said. “I just couldn’t really get the front of the car down while we were driving, so I had to run a little bit harder than everybody else. But all in all, I feel like the car was really good. Greg (Janes) worked his tail off on that thing, and hopefully we’ll see what we got in the Super.”

That last bit about his Super Late Model did not pan out as Smith would have hoped. In that race, Smith was involved in an early race incident that damaged his car. Later, he had a left front tire blow out, sending him hard into the outside wall in turn three. Smith was evaluated by on site paramedics and later made a trip to a local ER for further evaluation. While extremely sore, Smith posted to his social media that he is okay, but will need some time to recover and rebuild from the crash. 

Jake Finch successfully defended his reign as the Allen Turner Pro Late Model Series Champion with a solid run on Saturday, finishing second. Finch is never happy with second place finishes, but overall winning back-to-back championships for Ronnie Sanders Racing was the goal on this night.

“It felt like we struggled a little bit,” he said. “It didn’t feel like our car was exactly where we needed it to be. I thought we struggled with it, but overall happy. I’m not normally happy with second places but I didn’t feel like that was a terrible one with how our car was. I felt like we could have been a little bit better, but yeah, overall, happy to get the championship and kind of prove how consistent this 18 car has been all year.

“To give Ronnie and the guys the gift of the championships shows our consistency and our effort to show up every week throughout a season. I’m glad for not only the championship for myself, but more the team, honestly, because it shows the consistency. You got to put a full season together to get one.

“I’m proud of everybody on the 18 car and everything they’ve done. Wish we could have won it, but we’ll save it for the Derby, I guess.”

Busch Lite Championship Night | Five Flags Speedway Pro Late Model (ATPLM) Feature Results:

1. 48 Turner Brown
2. 18 Jake Finch
3. 33 Dustin Smith
4. 67 Zack Dixon
5. 9 Ryan Luza
6. 100 Weston Marthaler
7. 91 Jim Wall
8. 11 James Patrick
9. 99 Cody Martell
10. 27 Vito Cancilla
11. 11 Hayden Plybon
12. 22 Ryan Herbert
13. 41 Troy Grasaffi