2017 Georgia State Outlaw Championships

Two Nights Of Racing In Georgia See Five Winners

Two Nights Of Racing In Georgia See Five Winners

The Georgia State Outlaw Championships witnessed three race winners and two series champions standing in Victory Lane.

Nov 20, 2017 by Dan Beaver
Two Nights Of Racing In Georgia See Five Winners

Two nights of racing at Screven Motor Complex witnessed five winners in the Ultimate Super Late Model and Fastrak series as a national audience focused its attention on FloRacing’s live stream from Sylvania, GA, this past weekend.

Watch Full Race Coverage of the Georgia State Outlaw Championships

Ultimate Super Late Models

While Tyler Millwood was being congratulated on his 2017 Ultimate series championship and rookie of the year honors, Chris Ferguson said he was happy to race against the Ultimate regulars after his 2011 title even if he was "washed up."

The fans and field realized he was joking during the second night of the Georgia State Outlaw Championships on Saturday when he dominated the final feature of the season in a 40-lap, flag-to-flag whipping of the field. First, he set fast time of 14.731 seconds.

Ferguson started on the pole next to Casey Roberts. On the first attempt at a start, Ferguson got turned around, spinning in front of the field. Luckily no one hit the leader, and the field reset for a redo of lap one. The race saw its fair share of cautions, but that fell into Ferguson’s game plan because he was just hitting lapped traffic each time.

The second caution waved for Fastrak regular Matthew Nance, who got turned around on the front stretch.

On lap 12, five cars piled up to bring out another caution. Casey Barrow, Jason Welshan, Gary Stuhler, and Dalton Cook all faced the wrong direction in turn one, but that simply allowed Ferguson to sit on the front row unchallenged for another restart.

When the field returned to green, Ferguson led Roberts, Bailes, Rambo Franklin, and Millwood — who was looking to cap his championship with his first series win of 2017.

That was not going to happen for the young champ. On lap 23, Johnny Pursley and Millwood tangled, which sent Millwood to the back of the pack. The series champion quickly started knocking off cars as he attempted to make it back up to the front contenders. He came up just short of the top 10 in 11th.

Ferguson held Roberts off in the final laps as the feature. Brent Larson found his way around Bailes to claim the final podium position, with Bailes and Pursley completing the top five.

Fastrak

The Fastrak portion of the event was staged over both Friday and Saturday night.

Night one of the Georgia State Outlaw Championships saw Georgia native Travis Pennington take home the $2,000 win. He started on the outside of the front row next to Benji Hicks — who needed to finish only sixth or better in order to clinch the title over Jensen Ford.

To watch him drive those opening laps, no one would have known that Hicks was racing for points because he pulled some aggressively mean sliders every time the green flag waved.

On lap six, Pennington found the high side, however, and took the lead from Hicks. Pennington held steady for the remaining 24 laps and cruised to victory, while Hicks was forced to protect the bottom line from Ches Chester and Cla Knight.

Hicks second-place finish was more than enough to clinch the title; Ford finished 14th.

In the second night of the Fastrak finale weekend, Austin Mintz started on the pole with Dillon Brown chasing. On the first lap, Brown got the jump and took the lead before ultimately holding on for the season-ending win.

Mintz faded out of winning contention, ultimately finishing in 14th place.

Brown was chased across the line by Shane Riner, with Chester finishing third for the second night in a row.

Neither Hicks nor Ford were much of a factor in the season finale because both split their efforts between the Crate Late Models they regularly run in Fastrak and the Super Late Ultimate cars. Hicks finished sixth, and Ford crossed in 13th.