2/13/2024
Lake View Motor Speedway
Brian Calabrese Cashes In At I-95 South of the Border Showdown
Brian Calabrese celebrated in Northeast Sportsman Modified racing’s return to Lake View Motor Speedway for the I-95 South of the Border Cash Money Showdown, taking the checkered flag and the $3,000 prize on Sunday afternoon.
Calabrese led all 30 laps of the feature race, leading the field to the green flag after winning his heat race and drawing the top spot in the lineup. Calabrese finished 0.622 seconds ahead of Derrick McGrew, Jr., as the two drivers were evenly matched throughout the feature race.
"Thank you [to Lake View] for having us here," said Calabrese in victory lane. "They did a hell of a job on this track surface. It is rubbered up, but to put a surface down and be smooth is pretty good.
"We unloaded fast, time trialed fast and that's what put us up front. I didn't want to give it up in that last lap in lapped traffic, so I just tried to block the bottom so he couldn't dive-bomb me."
McGrew sensed he was gaining on Calabrese in the closing laps, but knew it would take an overly aggressive move or a late restart for him to have a chance at the victory.
"Hats off to Brian, he ran a good race," said McGrew. "We came on strong there at the end, but we just ran out of time. I tried being as conservative as I could throughout the entire race without burning off the tire. That tire wasn't brand new to start with. You can look at it now, it's about gone."
"Those last five laps, we started catching Brian. The only thing I could have done was drive through Brian, and I wasn't going to do that. Brian's ran me clean. Trying to jump him without jumping on the restart was probably the only way I was going to get him, and Brian was good on the restarts."
Michael Ballestero won the first heat race and hoped to start on the pole, but drew the third starting spot in the lineup. As it turned out, Ballestero would also finish in third place, unable to break back into the top two.
"The track was nice. It started rubbering up a bit, but it was nice all weekend long," said Ballestero. "The boys worked all week long at it, threw a bunch of different stuff at it. They kept us in the top three or four all weekend long. We can't complain about this.
"Starting position was everything. If we had drew the 'one,' maybe it would have been a different story. I can't blame anyone but myself, I drew the number three and put me in third."
In the Late Model feature, Dustin Mitchell led wire-to-wire for the win in the 30-lap event. The Pine Level, North Carolina driver finished 3.7 seconds ahead of Willie Milliken and Bradley McCaskill. McCaskill moved from fifth to third on the final lap, as Brandon Dockery’s car lost power taking the white flag and McCaskill passed him and Taylor Puckett.
Tom Lovett scored the win in the Stock V8 feature, holding off Derek Kemper in the closing laps. Tim Lovett finished third, followed by Richard Seals and Cameron Lee.
Submitted By: Lisa Clemons
