Shane Clanton served notice early in the season that he would be a force that required reckoning with a win in his third World of Outlaws Late Model Series start. Unfortunately, his voice was muted somewhat by five results outside the top 10 in his first five starts.

Clanton struggled in the first two races of the year with results of 20th and 15th at Screven Motor Complex in Sylvania, GA. In each case, he fell one spot from his grid position, so it is not as if he was a serious contender in either of those races. One week later, when the series rolled into Barberville, FL’s Volusia County Speedway, he started to show his mettle.

Qualifying second through the preliminaries, he got his first of five major league wins on Feb. 24. The next night, he ran well again in the prelims to start fourth but fell to 13th and would not challenge for a top 10 again until April.

Notably, it was a win in the Ultimate Super Late Model Series at Senioa (GA) Raceway that got him back on track. And while this series is not one that contributes percentage points to the Flo50 standings, it gave him confidence.

Clanton had a couple of seventh-place finishes in the Illini 100 prior to this win, but that was not sufficient to raise him in the Flo 50 standings. That Ultimate win in late April was followed by another strong run in his next outing at Cherokee Super Speedway in in Gaffney, SC — this time with the Outlaws.

That was part of a 10-race streak of top 10s that stretched through June and included another victory in the Ray Varner 50 at Tazewell (TN) Speedway.

Clanton would not record another top 10 streak like that one, but a strong run in the middle of July did a lot to advance him in the rankings. Four consecutive top fives in the middle of that month earned an average of 91.8 percentage points. That was followed by one more win in one of the preliminary nights of the Prairie Dirt Classic at Fairbury (IL) American Legion Speedway.

Clanton ended the season a little erratically — just as he started it. In his last five attempts, he failed to crack the top five a single time, but three top 10s and a 12th allowed him to protect his spot among the 50 Greatest Dirt Track drivers of 2017.

Flo 50

*Percentage points utilize the baseline belief that a win is a win in the major series covered. One hundred points is awarded to first and the points decrement below that as a percentage of the field. For example, in a 25-car field, each position behind the winner is worth four fewer points. In races with incredibly large fields, the points decrement to a less extreme degree. A 50-car field decrements two points per position, and drivers earn points even if they fail to make the A-main.

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