Story by: Corey Latham ~ corey@RACE22.com

Hudson, NC(April 19, 2010) -- Domination. Usually, that is not a good word when it comes to racing. Fans like to see action and that's exactly what happened last Friday night at Tri-County Motor Speedway for the fourth UARA-STARS Series event on the schedule, but it did have a twist.

While the lead was a forgone conclusion, racing was happening everywhere on the track, with skirmishes popping up frequently. Brennan Poole didn't care what anybody thought though, as he was the one dominating on the way to his first UARA Series victory. Twenty-five cars were on hand for the 150 lap affair, and it was a welcomed sight after the rather small field of 15 starting the race at Dillon Motor Speedway last time out. Of those in attendance that haven't run every UARA event were Chris Lawson, Dylan Presnell, RA Brown, Ty Dillon, Kaleb Pressley, Jessica Murphy and Alan Scoggins.

Jamie Yelton was also in the house, as he is running a limited schedule, but when the #8 shows up at the track, people know it's a force to be reckoned with. Yelton was fast all day, but the 14 year-old rookie and Kingsport winner Clint King took the honors of leading the final practice session. Kyle Grissom followed him on the board, with Yelton 3rd, Scott Turlington fourth, and last years Tr-County runner up Chris Lawson in fifth.

Things were pretty uneventful for practice, unless you were Alex Yontz, who backed his Barber Ford into the turn 1 wall doing great damage to the rear end. When asked what happened, Alex replied in typical Yontz fashion with a smile, "I wrecked it". The Barber/Yontz team would do some drastic cutting and bending on the rear end to make it raceable, and they did a great job as Alex made it out of time trials with the 7th spot, amazing after what the car looked like just an hour before. Nobody could top Grissom's lap of 16.325, as he was followed by Yelton, Brennan Poole, Clint King and Robert Johnson finally shaking off his early season demons to put his Carolina Carports #11 in the top five.

As the race time grew closer, the talk up and down pit road wasn't about the fastest car there in Grissom, but rather the guy to his outside, everybody wondered what Yelton was going to do. Jamie has been known throughout his career to "leave nothing on the table", so the start had some on pins and needles. As the green flew, Grissom tried to keep the top spot, but Yelton was having none of it and muscled his way into the lead. The racing didn't last long as back behind them, Ty Dillon gets into the back of Garret Campbell hard in the first turn, spinning Campbell and ultimately ending Dillon's day with a busted radiator.

The next restart was clean, and Yelton began to set sail. But anyone who has followed the UARA this year noticed one thing up front that they have seen every race at the end, but not the beginning. Brennan Poole. Brennan has been downright awful in time trials this year, but has rebounded to have the best car in nearly every race, but coming from the back uses up so much car getting there, and Brennan has simply ran out of time this year. This week Poole was starting up front, and from the get go, you could see what the night was in store for. At lap ten he goes by Grissom for second, and just seven laps later he was on Yelton for the lead.

Brennan drives a car out of the Yelton shop, so was his owner going to give him a hard time knowing he was faster than him? Are you kidding me, of course he was. Poole tried lap after lap, but each time Yelton would slam the door. Yelton did find out that Poole wasn't going to roll over, and after some tense moments, Poole finally makes the move to take over the lead on lap 29. Behind him, Clint King was all over Grissom for second, while Yontz was trying desperately to hold on to fifth from Lee Tissot. Poole would have to hear about all the racing in the pack later, because he surely never saw it again from that point, he was on a rail.

The racing was tense in the pack, and the car on the move was Lawson.Chirs Lawson had run sporadically in the UARA last year, but when he came it was always good, and he and Matt McCall put on one of the best shows of the year at Tri-County, running side-by-side the last several laps with McCall winning by a fender. Lawson didn't qualify where he wanted, but his race setup was shining through, as he was using the extremely low-line that nobody else could. In front of him, Tissot had been battling with Yontz for the fifth spot for several laps, and when Tissot finally got around, Lawson made a power mover to overtake both drivers in the same lap. While he was coming, another driver was doing the same "David Pearson" style if you will.

The field had got stretched out a bit at the front, but towards the middle to the back, it was action every lap. In the middle of that was the hottest man this season, the point leader and last race out winner, Coleman Pressley. The new semi controversial Ford crate motor had been his weapon of choice this season in the #59, but this week he was running a Chevy Crate motor, and everybody was eager to see what it would do. As he has set the world on fire in qualifying this year, Friday was not the same, as he put up a disappointing time four tenths off the leaders to start 19th. People started to wonder if it was all motor that had got Pressley the success he has had this year, but Pressley put on a driving clinic coming from the back patiently and quietly, and by lap 60 had moved from 19th to 8th. Rather impressive, but he wasn't done.

Up front while Poole was cruising, Yelton was fighting for his life with Grissom. Lap after lap, Grissom would look to the inside and Yelton would shut the door. It became evident that the handle was going away on the #8, as third place Clint King and Lawson were beginning to reel Yelton and Grissom in. After nearly 15 laps, Grissom was finally able to take over the second spot, but Yelton had no time to breathe, because King and Lawson were now beating on his back bumper. We get to lap 107, and King finally sticks a nose under Yelton going into turn one, but before the pass is made, Lawson gets into the back of him and King and Lawson both spin to the inside of Yelton to bring out the caution. Lawson would recover to stay on the lead lap, but King would go a lap down, ending his chances at a good finish with a car that he knew was a top 3 ride.

On the ensuing restart, out of the blue Pressley darts to the outside and makes a power mover around Yelton, Yelton squeezes him into the wall down the backstretch throwing up paint and dust, but Pressley is able to hang on to take over third. It went more downhill for Yelton then as he lost a few more spots before the end. The handle wasn't the problem, he had brake issues halfway through the race ending his chances at victory.

We get to 30 to go, and it gets a little weird. Lee Tissot had been battling with the lapped car of Garrett Campbell for many laps (as they always seem to do at Tri-County), and finally cut down a right front tire. Now whether his tire went down because of this or caused this is unknown, but we now had to red flag the race of a pot hole in turn 3. You can enter any Dayonta 500 remarks now.

The drivers cars went silent in turn 2 as they all rolled to a halt, and it was time for conversation from inside the cars. Garrett Campbell was asking Scott Turlington if his car would handle on the bottom, Jamie Yelton informed us that he had no brakes, and Coleman Pressley was lying to us. When I yelled at Coleman on which way he was going to try and pass Grissom on the next restart, top or bottom, Coleman looked over to Grissom beside him, looked back, and pointed to the bottom and told us not to tell. We know better Coleman, as loves the high side.
 

After the drivers got a rest and got some water, the patch was fixed and we were ready to go. Would anybody have anything for Poole, had someone been holding back? Not a chance. Pressley immediately went to the high side to get around Grissom, but Grissom was able to hold him off for several laps before moving in front to stay. Yelton had his hands full with Lawson coming around, and Scott Turlington, who's car had got better all day, came right with him to move into fifth.

Poole was gone, Grissom was comfortably in second, but the real race was between Pressley and Lawson for third. Lawson went to the low side, but the momentum from the top groove would keep Pressley with a slight advantage. They would go at it the last ten laps, and coming off turn four Lawson surged ahead to take the third spot by mere inches.

The field had some great battles all night, Yelton holding cars off, Pressley and Turlington surging to the front, and Lawson driving his heart out from an earlier spin to come home third. But nobody could match the stellar performance from Poole, who had one of the best driving cars ever seen at Tri-County. Top, bottom, middle, it didn't matter, it was simply his race all night. Now that he has got the qualifying figured out, Poole looks as the car to beat as we roll into Ace Speedway for the next stop on May 1st.

Brennan Poole: "That was just a great car, David King gave me an awesome ride, it was a lot of fun to go out there and beat my teammate. We struggled a little in practice, but we decided not to mess with it and see what we had and the guys hit it right on. I just tried not use my stuff up, it is so awesome to get a win here, we knew we were close, now we got it done. Having Jamie Yelton, David King and Greg Marlowe giving me advice has been a great help, and I've been testing more getting more seat time and that has really helped me out. We thought we had a shot at the pole, but it was a great effort all around. Maybe now I will lay some of my trophies in front of Coleman's door like he did me last week. (Poole and Pressley are roommates)

Kyle Grissom: "It's just so hard to get under somebody here, I got to racing with Yelton and he made it a little hard for me, but I was expecting that with Brennan(Poole) out front, it was really fun though. The car pretty much stayed the same the whole race, at the start we were tight in the middle and loose off, it got a little better though, but I don't think we were ever as good as (Brennan)Poole's car. We were a second place car all night and that's were we finished".

Chris Lawson: "That was a pretty hard race. Down there when I spun out I was under the #07 and I thought he had cleared (Jamie)Yelton and I just got pinched down so I spun myself because it was going to be big. I just had to use too much tire coming back up through there, the car was awesome though as usual. I don't think I had anything for (Brennan)Poole, he was in the zone, but I definitely had something for second, I just couldn't get there."

Coleman Pressley: "That was an eventful one for sure, I don't want to do that anymore, that's one and done hopefully. All in all it was a pretty good night, I got beat out of third by a couple of feet, lost a couple of points there but we gained it back in passing points. (Brennan)Poole might have taken the points lead over us, that's cool though, I'll let him win the battle but I'm going to win the war. He told me he was going to win Dillon all week, after I won I layed the trophy on his bed. I told him all week he was going to win here, but I was trying to get inside his head, if I could have made it up to him it might have been different."
 
Official Results:
1.Brennan Poole
2.Kyle Grissom
3.Chris Lawson
4.Coleman Pressley
5.Scott Turlington
6.Dylan Presnell
7.Jamie Yelton
8.Matt Kurzejewski
9.Ronnie Bassett, Jr.
10.Robert Johnson
11.Clint King
12.Alex Yontz
13.RA Brown
14.Grant McGinnis
15.Kaleb Pressley
16.Michael Rouse
17.Julia Dawson
18.Garrett Campbell
19.Lee Tissot
20.Jessica Murphy
21.John King II
22.Dennis Queen
23.Tyler English
24.Alan Scoggins
25.Ty Dillon