SOUTH BOSTON, VA – NASCAR Whelen All-American Series National and South Boston track points leader Matt Bowling sat on pole for the first of two twin 75-lap races and went on to score the win on Saturday night after an early race incident with Austin Thaxton.

Early in the race, Thaxton and Bowling, made slight contact for a series of laps, culminating in Thaxton getting into the wall hard before driving his car backwards down the track for a couple of laps, attempting to intimidate Bowling. As a result of this conflict, Bowling sustained slight damage to the right rear of the car.

“I haven’t heard from Thaxton yet but I don’t know, he jumped the restart down in three,” Bowling remarked.  “I scooted him back up the track and got back by him but he tried to hook me in the right rear before he got in the wall. I didn’t do anything intentional to wreck him, I gave him plenty of room.”

As the race ran on, Bowling ran away from the field, at one time holding a more than three-second advantage over Enrique Baca.

Ultimately, Bowling won his eighth race of the season and led 73 of the 75 laps in doing so.

“It was a tough race to win,” Bowling stated.  “Just a hard fought win with some tough starts and restarts. We just had a good enough car to get away and when we got away, we stayed away. I tried to save something for the other twin race but I think we will need to be a little better when that time comes. We will make some adjustments towards it and see what happens, we drew No.”

After the race, Sellers, who is running all three races on tap tonight for a total of 300 laps said he felt okay.

Unofficial Results

1. Matt Bowling
2. Bobby McCarty
3. Peyton Sellers
4. Mark Wertz
5. Brandon Pierce
6. Danny Willis, Jr.
7. Enrique Baca
8. Maddie Crane
9. Nathan Crews
10. Raymon Pittman, III
11. Maddy Ryan Mulligan
12. Jason Pittman
13. Jason Barnes
14. Charles Barnes
15. Stuart Crews
16. Josh Berry
17. Justin Crider
18. Dylan Saul
19. Josh Oakley
20. Austin Thaxton
21. Mark Keesee, Jr.
22. Eric Winslow
23. Christian Eckes
24. Alex Brock