Casey Kelley swept both ends of the ‘Double Day’ twin 40s on Saturday at Florence Motor Speedway.
He led wire-to-wire in the first race and headed a podium that included Matt Cox and Cody Kelley. In the second race, he won over Zack Miracle and Donovan Strauss but only after a seven-car invert that forced some hard racing in the final 40 laps of the afternoon and a last lap photo finish pass.
Kelley was methodical in his work, up to third by 15 laps into the race. He was second by 30 laps into the race and then came the slow burn for the lead. The battle began in earnest with five laps to go. Kelley got into the back of Miracle but he couldn’t be budged.
Kelley stayed under Miracle and won the drag race to the frontstretch.
The first order was business was checking in with Miracle to make sure they were good and they were.
“Yeah, I got into him a little bit but it wasn’t on purpose,” Kelley said. “He raced me really clean. That was an awesome car and it shouldn’t be that good to drive through the field. We got to five to go and I knew it was time to do something and he raced me good, he’s a good driver.”
Miracle played the invert to get the track position and did everything he could to ward Kelley off.
“I would have done the same he did, you know what I mean,” Miracle said. “That was good racing. It was as clean as you can get in that situation. It sucks to lose but we’ll learn from it and be better for next time.”
RACE 1
Casey Kelley
Matt Cox
Cody Kelley
Chris Throckmorton
Bryant Barnhill
Zack Miracle
Donovan Strauus
Alex Meggs
Tyler Matthews
Zack Wells
Blake Sasser
Alex Hicks
Stuart Ricks
RACE 2
Casey Kelley
Zack Miracle
Donovan Strauss
Cody Kelley
Chris Throckmorton
Zack Wells
Blake Sasser
Alex Meggs
Bryant Barnhill
Tyler Mattews
Alex Hicks
Matt Cox
