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Sammy Smith Returns to Victory Lane in World Series Night 3

It’s a true reset for the Iowan who also won a World Series feature in 2020

Luis Torres

For the second year in a row, Sammy Smith reached Victory Lane during the World Series of Asphalt, but it may be best to forget everything that happened in between.

It was a challenging summer for the 16-year-old Iowan.

He struggled to consistently run up front with Kyle Busch Motorsports, racing with three different crew chiefs, and departing the team for Donnie Wilson Motorsports during the winter after his Cup Series champion team owner placed his team on hiatus.

It took just three starts for Smith to find his way back to Victory Lane, capturing Night 3 of the Super Late Model Speedweeks championship, and hopefully setting himself up for a resurgent effort this time around.

“I feel like the restarts really worked into my favor,” Smith said on the NBC TrackPass broadcast. “The No.74 (Moore) was tight and he would bottom out getting into the corner. I felt like that really became my advantage.”

Moore started on the pole after turning the fourth quickest lap in time trials, inheriting the top spot after Jesse Love drew the invert. He fell back to third shortly after the start, where he would run for most of the race, before finishing there.

“I was hitting the track hard at the start,” Moore said. “We fought it in qualifying and took a swing at it. We thought it would fix itself. After the first caution, I thought it fired good and we were right there with (Smith) but it came right back on the next restart.

“That’s alright, it’s a good points night, and we’ll get em this week.

It was a better points day than he even realized at the time as championship leader, and defending champion, Derek Griffith could only muster a ninth-place finish. Meanwhile, second-place in points Jett Noland crashed out of the race.

It was especially frustrating for Noland, who lost an engine to start the day, and borrowed Jesse Dutilly’s backup car. That crash began with a flat tire on the frontstretch.

Here is a brief look at the standings through three of seven races.

  1. Ryan Moore
  2. Justin Mondeik -2
  3. Jacob Goede -4
  4. Derek Grifith -6
  5. Sammy Smith -12
  6. Coonor Mosack -18
  7. Jake GArcia -30
  8. Jett Noland -34
  9. Brad May -52
  10. Kris Wright -54

The Super Late Model division will take Monday off in lieu of the ARCA East Series and the Tour Type Modifieds. They resume racing on Tuesday night.

  1. Sammy Smith
  2. Justin Mondeik
  3. Ryan Moore
  4. Jacob Goede
  5. Stephen Nasse
  6. Jesse Love
  7. Jake Garcia
  8. Daniel Dye
  9. Derek Griffith
  10. Dan Fredrickson
  11. Kelly Moore
  12. Connor Mosack
  13. Kris Wright
  14. Michael Hinde
  15. Jake Finch
  16. Doug Elliott
  17. Bubba Pollard
  18. Steve Weaver
  19. Patrick Thomas
  20. Jett Noland
  21. Brad May
  22. Jaden Cretacci
  23. RJ Braun

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Matt Weaver is the owner and founder of Short Track Scene. Weaver grew up in the sport, having raced himself before becoming a reporter in college at the University of South Alabama. He also has extensive experience covering NASCAR, IndyCar and Dirt Sprint Cars.

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