Friday night at the 2015 Featherlite Fall Jamboree may have been the most thrilling ever, and Jason Hughes may have been even more excited after his win than the one he had 24 hours earlier that paid him five times as much.
“I hope the fans enjoyed that one. That was one heck of a race up there,” Hughes said in victory lane. “I was sitting back there in fourth and was watching those guys get after it in front of me and thought ‘Man, this is gonna get good.’”
Hughes was never a factor in the 40-lap feature race until after he made a pass of Joe Duvall with eight laps to go. With Rodney Sanders and Brandon Davis battling for the lead right in front of them, the final handful of laps was beyond incredible.
Duvall drew the pole for the main event but it was fellow front-row starter Zack VanderBeek who got the jump at the start. After trading “slide jobs” for the first couple of laps, Duvall settled in up front with VanderBeek giving chase.
Churning the thin cushion around the top of the high-banked oval, Duvall was able to stretch his lead to about six car lengths until Terry Phillips suffered mechanical problems just after sliding in front of VanderBeek for second on lap 7.
After the caution, Stormy Scott and Sanders made it three wide with VanderBeek behind Duvall. With Duvall continuing to dance with the concrete wall, Scott worked the low side of the track and led the ninth lap, but Duvall roared back to regain the top spot on lap 10.
Again, Duvall was able to pull away from the pack for the next few laps but Sanders got by Scott and then began to slowly chip away at Duvall’s advantage. At the halfway point it was Duvall, Sanders, Davis, Scott and Hughes filling the first five slots while VanderBeek scrapped with 14th-starting Clayton Wagamon for the sixth position.
Sanders was able to scoot underneath Duvall for the lead with 26 laps in the books, and that’s when things really started to get good.
Duvall attempted to throw a slider at Sanders but the 25-year-old was able to slingshot back underneath Duvall to maintain the lead.
With Duvall now searching the low and middle portions of the track for a way back around Sanders, Davis assumed the role of rim-riding around the top side and blasted into second on lap 28. Meanwhile, Hughes was tucked in behind the three front-runners, waiting for his chance to join the party.
Hughes drove by Duvall on lap 32 and then slipped underneath Davis for second on lap 33. After completing the 34th lap, the lead trio exited turn 2 with Hughes underneath Sanders and Davis riding the wall as he screamed by both drivers to take the point.
With Davis leading, Hughes and Sanders swapped the second spot four times over the next four laps while Duvall lurked in their tire tracks in fourth. At this time, few even noticed that Brad Waits was now fifth after starting on the outside of the eighth row.
As the leaders came to get the white flag, Davis banged the outside retaining wall. Both right side tires cleared the three feet of concrete and, for a moment, all four wheels came off the ground. Somehow, Davis kept his composure and actually took the white flag as the leader.
Damage from the contact, however, was too extensive and Davis began to slow at the top of turn 1 while Hughes, Sanders and Duvall sailed away.
Sanders made one final attempt to get underneath Hughes as they came to the checkered flag, but it was Hughes leading his first lap of the race on the final lap of the race and pocketing his second $5,000 top prize of the weekend.
Duvall notched a third-place paycheck with his third straight top-10 finish at the Deer Creek Speedway. Waits and Scott were fourth and fifth.
VanderBeek, Brad Dierks, Wagamon, Dan Ebert and Hughes’ teammate, Tommy Weder Jr., rounded out the top 10.
The 17th Annual Featherlite Fall Jamboree continues on Saturday with another complete show and a $10,000 top prize for the 2015 Featherlite Fall Jamboree champion.
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