Gustin Banks $15,000 Swainsboro WoO Late Model Prize

Ryan Gustin celebrates in victory lane Saturday at Swainsboro Raceway. (Emily Schwanke photo)

SWAINSBORO, Ga. – Ryan Gustin dominated the big-money finale to the two-night Battle of the Crossroads for the World of Outlaws Late Model Series Saturday night at Swainsboro Raceway.

‘The Reaper’ started fourth and took the lead on lap four, never looking back from that point on en route to his 12th career win and second of the season, as well as a $15,000 paycheck.

Gustin also closed the points gap to current series leader Bobby Pierce, trailing Pierce by just 30 points leaving Swainsboro and tied for second in the standings with Nick Hoffman.

But there was some worry for the Marshalltown, Iowa, driver, as early on he damaged the left front nose piece and it almost folded under the left front tire.

Thankfully for Gustin, the car was still good enough that he wasn’t worried from behind the wheel.

“Cody (Mallory, crew chief) told me I could move a house with it earlier, so I wasn’t too concerned about it,” Gustin said in victory lane. “He definitely beefed it up, I don’t know if it bent or not. I’m sure it got bent down a little bit; [the early contact] got the tire pretty good. I just can’t thank these guys enough, though. They’ve been working their asses off and they deserve [this win] more than I do. They put in a lot of hours. I’ve got the best crew in the world.

“I didn’t know what anyone else was on for tires, so I didn’t want to go out there and blister our stuff. Didn’t want to give up too much ground, either, at the same time. Cody did a good job of telling me where I needed to go and when to move around a bit. I felt like I picked up speed when I did that.”

Polesitter Drake Troutman and Ashton Winger battled side-by-side for the first lap and a half before Troutman took early control, but a lap-three caution bunched the frontrunners back up and gave Gustin his chance to pounce from third place.

Gustin rolled the outside against Winger on the restart, then surged inside Troutman shortly after to take a lead he wouldn’t relinquish, despite two cautions in the second half that gave the field chances to close back in.

Winger couldn’t close on Gustin during a six-lap dash to the checkered flag, but still finished second for his first finish of the season better than 17th through eight races.

“From the beginning of the year, I wasn’t even fast enough to get an emergency provisional,” Winger said. “I could make a little time down [in Turns 1 and 2] when I would hit it right or he would get it wrong. It got kind of tight over there leaving 2, the way the wall comes at you here, it goes from three lanes to one and a half. Figured I needed a good run, tried to use my head.”

Pierce, who won Friday’s weekend kickoff, started in 10th after a bad heat race. He was able to claw his way to a third-straight podium, however, finishing third ahead of Troutman.

Hoffman was able to gain three spots to finish fifth, staying hot on the heels of both Pierce and Gustin in the standings. Dennis Erb Jr., Tim McCreadie, Dustin Sorenson, Dalton Cook, and Jimmy Owens closed out the top 10 finishers.

Sorenson was the night’s hard charger after rolling from his Last Chance Showdown and a 24th-place starting spot to his eighth-place finish, gaining 16 positions.

The World of Outlaws Late Model Series takes a week off before heading to Ohio’s Atomic Speedway for the two-night Fireball 50 on Friday and Saturday, April 4-5. Every lap can be streamed live on DIRTvision.

The finish:

A-Feature (50 laps): 1. 19R-Ryan Gustin [4]; 2. 12-Ashton Winger [3]; 3. 32-Bobby Pierce [10]; 4. 22*-Drake Troutman [1]; 5. 9-Nick Hoffman [8]; 6. 28-Dennis Erb Jr. [5]; 7. 9M-Tim McCreadie [12]; 8. 19-Dustin Sorensen [24]; 9. 44D-Dalton Cook [9]; 10. 20-Jimmy Owens [15]; 11. 18X-Michael Page [22]; 12. 96-Tanner English [7]; 13. 16S-Sam Seawright [14]; 14. 14JR-Trey Mills [17]; 15. 74X-Ethan Dotson [20]; 16. 75-Daniel Adam [13]; 17. 49-Jake Timm [19]; 18. 111-Max Blair [23]; 19. 20TC-Tristan Chamberlain [25]; 20. 3S-Brian Shirley [6]; 21. B1-Brent Larson [26]; 22. 40B-Kyle Bronson [21]; 23. 2-Cody Overton [11]; 24. 23V-Cory Hedgecock [16]; 25. 10-Garrett Smith [2]; 26. 11-Austin Smith [18].