Rick Rickman had been waiting for weeks for a bounce to go his way.
Whether it was a flat tire that ruined a race in which he was leading or a random part coming loose on his No. 86 Advanced Logistics Super Late Model car, Rickman and his team needed a morale boost entering the Comp Cams feature Sunday at Magnolia Motor Speedway.
Rickman was on his way to a second top-three finish when his patience paid off. On the last lap, leader Dane Dacus and Hunter Rasdon connected off turn 2 and slid toward the bottom of the track. Rickman moved up about a half-car length to take the lead and win $2,000 in his first Comp Cams race.
“It’s like getting out of the draft at Daytona. You get up and they’re gonna drive by you,” Rickman said. “The 54 car (Dacus) slid up a bit, and the 5 (Rasdon) stuck his nose in there. The 54 came down, and they tied up just enough for me to get around.
“We’ll take it any way we can get it, especially with the bad luck we’ve had this year. It just finally feels good for everything to come together. We’ve been working really hard. We raced three nights this week, and to be back at home for the win is good.”
The Comp Cams series, based in Arkansas, hosted three races in Mississippi over the weekend. Rasdon won Friday at Greenville and Saturday at Jackson.
“We were going for the triple crown,” Rasdon said, “so it’s disappointing.”
Rickman was leading Friday at Greenville before slipping to third. He finished seventh at Jackson after catching a flat and falling to the back of the field.
“We’ve been good all weekend, and a win like this gives you a lot of momentum,” Rickman said. “We’ve changed a bunch of stuff on the car over the weekend, mainly with our rear-end suspension. (There are) three or four bars we put in different locations, and it’s seemed to help the car work a lot better.”
Dacus finished third and Rasdon, who fell to second in the Comp Cams series points, finished fourth. Following the race, members of both race teams had to separated by deputies from the Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office. Tempers boiled beyond shouting and finger-pointing, as one man had to be taken down by a deputy.
“Me and Dane, we’re good buddies and (have) been friends,” Rasdon said. “I hate that tempers rose. It’s hot. It’s a summer night … what do you expect?”
Although track promoter Johnny Stokes cut up the top half of the surface and re-packed it before the features started, the recent spell of dry weather left the line dry and crumbly, forcing most of the action to the bottom of the track. With one line, Rasdon tried to size up and opening against Dacus, who led by about four car-lengths once he took the lead on lap 11.
Rasdon said the tangle with Dacus was nothing more than a “racin’ deal,” and that his move in turn 2 was calculated.
“He made a bobble and I shot it,” Rasdon said. “I guess there wasn’t enough room where he came down. The last 10 laps, I was judging where he’d mess up. He’d been bobbling in the same spot, and I was figuring out how to be real good right there. I made sure I was perfect those last three laps. I went for it. It was the last lap.
Dacus, though, said Rasdon went into the corner “too hard.”
“I figured he’d give me a little bit of respect, but now I know how he wants to race,” Dacus said.
Jack Sullivan took second and Ronny Lee Hollingsworth finished fifth.
In other action, Evan Ellis won the NeSmith Late Model feature. Grant Pearl, Jeremy Shaw, Mark Stokes, and Kyle Shaw rounded out the top five.
Lee Ray won the Street Stocks feature, Spencer Hughes, Trey Rickman, Scooter Ware, and Jamie Sudduth rounded out the top five.
Heath Beard won the Factory Stocks feature, while Chris Howell, Jennifer Byrd, John Beard, and Brad Gable rounded out the top five.
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