MSCCS Late Models
Greenville Speedway
May 16, 2012
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Mother Nature doesn't slow McCool from victory at Greenville Speedway



by Bryan Wimberley
GREENVILLE, Miss. (May 12) - When it rain, it pours, so the saying goes -literally and figuratively in this case! Bub McCool of Vicksburg, Miss., continued his winning trend as of late, scoring a rain-shortened victory for $2,500 at Greenville Speedway on Saturday night. McCool wasted little time, jumping to the lead from his second-row starting position, to grab the scheduled 50-lap win, in a Mississippi State Championship Challenge Series' event that was called after 16 laps of action.
 
"It means a lot to us to get a win up here, since we are on a break from the national tour (of the World of Outlaws). We have a lot of fans up this way, a lot of people that follow me, so that alone means so much to our team. I believe this is the first race I have won under rain, we started third and we kept digging around that bottom line and just got by them boys," said McCool.
 
McCool claimed his seventh MSCC Series victory after track and series' officials made the decision to axe the remaining 34 laps of the event, as the light rain became heavier, causing the speedway to become treacherous. Before the features' of all divisions began running, a very light and sporadic precipitation started to fall. With the MSCCS Late Models in the staging area, conditions slowly developed later into a steady sprinkle, turning into rainfall at the time the drivers were instructed to take to the infield, then to the pits.
 
McCool added, "We freed up the car a little more for the feature, than what we had in the dash race. We were a little too tight in the dash, I thought we had a pretty good car and the bottom hadn't really come in yet. We freed it up some and it seemed to work with what we wanted to do, to get to the front early."
 
Polesitter Rick Rickman of Columbus, Miss., took second place, as Jeremy Broadus of Biloxi, climbed from 9th-starting spot to finish third. The result was good enough to elevate Broadus into a first-place tie for the points lead with fourth-running, Scott Dedwylder of Vossburg, Mississippi. Dedwylder set a new track record in qualifying and landed a front-row, feature starting spot after the six-lap dash.

Cliff Williams of Star, Miss., became the hard charger of the abbreviated race, going from 14th-to-fifth, rounding out the top 5 finishers.


 
It didn't take but one corner for the intial green flag to turn into a yellow, when track champion, Mike Palasini Jr of Leland, climbed the turn two concrete wall, slowing the field down. Palasini's No. 8 car rode the wall around the turns, before dropping back onto the speedway. Also getting caught up in the accident was Ross Camponovo of Clarksdale, MS, and Jamie Elam of Senatobia.
 
Elam would be able to keep going and resume his starting position, but Palasini and Camponovo's night would come to an end.
 
On the restart, Dedwylder led Rick Rickman, McCool, Elam and Clay Fisher of Dewitt, Ark., on the first lap. McCool passed Rickman for second and engaged Dedwylder for the lead on lap three.

McCool would edge Dedwylder by a nose at the line, but a second yellow would fly, giving the lead back to the No. 33 car, since the lap was incomplete.
 
Both drivers imposed their will on one another when the race resumed, racing side-by-side and catching up to the rear of the field to begin lapping cars. McCool would make the pass on Dedwylder in turn two, to seize control of the race.
 
Rickman pressured Dedwylder for second as McCool slipped away from the rest of the pack on lap 7. Just as McCool secured control, the race's third yellow bunched the field back up.
 
Dedwylder slipped back a position with Rickman reeling in McCool, only trailing by five lengths, just ten laps into the feature.
 
A four-car breakaway among the frontrunners ensued, while Broadus entered the fray of action, sending Dedwylder back to fourth on the lap 14. 
 
McCool lead Rickman by a second-and-a-half, when the drizzling rain turned into a perpetual downfall on lap 16, summoning a decision discussed between co-track owner, James Clolinger and MSCC Series official, Don Thrash, later calling a stop to the feature and awarding the win the McCool.



"I guess this wall wasn't too bad, it is never bad when it works out in your favor. It seemed like we had a couple grooves out there to run on and it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be," McCool said.
 
NOTES: McCool's Victory Circle M1 Race Car is powered by a Jay Dickens Racing Engine and sponsored by McCool Logging, New Vision Graphics, Henderson Motorsports, Southern Belle and Good Hope.
 
Although McCool is chasing the World of Outlaws Rookie of the Year title this season, McCool has recorded back-to-back wins now on the MSCCS tour with his rain shortened victory at Greenville. McCool's other series' win came seven weeks ago at Whynot Motorsports Park in Meridian. He currently has nine top 10's in (22) total events in 2012, including three wins. McCool claimed the biggest win of his career, scoring a $10,550 payday on the World of Outlaws tour at Tazewell Speedway in Tennessee on April 28th. The 34-year old driver currently leads the ROTY chase in the WoO Late Model Series and is fifth in the overall standings.
 
"We got to running pretty good around home here and we thought we could get a little better if we went out and raced those national guys. And true enough, we did that, we got out there on the same track we them and I feel like it has upped our game. When you race with guys on the national level, it is totally different racing and it hopefully makes you more competitive and better. The Tazewell win (in the World of Outlaws) a couple weeks ago meant so much for this team. Everybody that gets out there and races, that is kind of their dream and what they do it for -to win one of those type of events. We have been trying hard to accomplish that for a couple years now and we finally got one early on in this season," explained McCool.
 
It is also McCool's second win in-a-row at Greenville Speedway in as many attended races for the Vicksburg native. McCool took the 5th annual Gumbo Nationals last November, pocketing $7,000 for the win -a race sanctioned by the PRO Dirt Car Series.

McCool is also the first driver to repeat at the track's premier event, taking the inaugural Gumbo Nationals in November 2007. 

This season's Gumbo Nationals event will be sanctioned by the MSCC Series for the first time and is scheduled for October 5th-6th.
 
The feature started at 10:22 pm and was cut (21) minutes later due to the weather. Eleven cars finished on the lead lap with (13) cars running at the end. The 16-lap feature was slowed by four cautions.  
 


Greg Fore's Greenville Speedway track record set two years ago of 13.78 seconds, was beaten by four drivers, Bub McCool (13.582), Chad Thrash (13.667) and Rick Rickman (13.685), but Scott Dedwylder is the one that shattered it and now stands as the new record holder, clocking in at 13.545 seconds as the fastest overall qualifier.
 
The rain-shortened race was the series' 11th ever visit to the quarter-mile gumbo oval, that has spawned a different driver in victory lane the last nine MSCCS appearances -only McCool and David Breazeale of Four Corners, Miss., have been repeat winners at Greenville in the series.
 
Chad Thrash of Meridian, Miss., recorded his fifth straight top 10 series' finish at Greenville Speedway, placing 7th in the final feature rundown. Thrash claimed a 4th-place finish on the series' last visit to the track and won last June, beating eventual series' titlist Klint Byars.
 
Clay Fisher of Dewitt, Ark., returned from his scary accident at Diamond Park Speedway near Nashville, Arkansas, a few weeks ago. Fifteenth-starting Fisher rebounded at Greenville, becoming another driver quickly on the move before the rains came, advancing six positions to finish ninth.  
 
There were also (18) NeSmith Crate late models on hand to do battle with Brent Barrett of Grenada, Miss., the fastest qualifier at 14.767 seconds, before the rain nixed their feature race.

The Mississippi State Championship Challenge Series will be back in action this weekend with a $2,500-to-win race at Jackson Motor Speedway in Byram, Miss., on May 19th.
 
MSCCS @ Greenville: (1) Bub McCool, (2) Rick Rickman, (3) Jeremy Broadus, (4) Scott Dedwylder, (5) Cliff Williams, (6) Jamie Elam, (7) Chad Thrash, (8) Greg Fore, (9) Clay Fisher, (10) Mike Poyner, (11) Philip Gibson, (12) Edmond Jenkins, (13) Christopher Showah, (14) Doug Showah, (15) Bo Gordon, (16) Mike McNay, (17) Brooks Strength, (18) Brian Rickman, (19) Mike Palasini Jr, (20) Ross Camponovo.
 
Fastest qualifier (among 20 cars): Dedwylder, 13.545
Dash winner: R. Rickman
Consolation race winner: Broadus
 
MSCC Series point standings
(Top 10 through May 12th)
 
1. Jeremy Broadus - 380 
(tie) Scott Dedwylder - 380
3. Brian Rickman - 320
(tie) Rick Rickman - 320
5. Cliff Williams - 305
6. Bub McCool - 290
7. Chad Thrash - 270
8. Klint Byars - 225
9. Scott Creel - 200
10. Jamie Elam - 195
  
MSCC Series history at Greenville
 
Bub McCool (May 12, 2012)
Klint Byars (July 16, 2011)
Chad Thrash (June 18, 2011)
Neil Baggett (April 16, 2011)
David Breazeale (October 9, 2010)
Greg Fore (June 12, 2010)
Scott Slay (October 3, 2009)
Jeff Taylor (July 24, 2009)
Chris Wall (June 19, 2009)
Bub McCool (June 14, 2008)
David Breazeale (May 4, 2007)