Columbus, MS - Friday night, March 11th, the 4th Annual Brown Engineering Rebel Challenge kicked off with the first race of a two-night, $10,000 weekend at Columbus Speedway. Friday night's event, sanctioned by the Mississippi State Championship Challenge Series (MSCCS), featured possibly the most impressive field of drivers in "State Series" history racing for $2,000-to-win. 62 Super Late Models were on hand for Friday night's event, with Saturday night's unsanctioned race paying $8,000-to-win.
Promoter Johnny Stokes would fight off 20-30 MPH sustained winds and cool weather to provide a fine racing surface that provided excellent action. Saturday's forecast is more favorable, with calmer winds expected and high temperature around 76. All proceeds for the weekend's events go to the Bobby Brown Scholarship Fund, named in honor of legendary engine builder Bobby Brown, father of Brown Engineering Racing Engine's Robert Brown.
"The Real Deal" Don O'Neal, slated to start 3rd, would encounter oil line problems and would not make the starting field.
"The Mowekwa Missile" Shannon Babb would top qualifying with an impressive run of 13.73 in his Jay Dickens-powered machine, ahead of local hero "The Ragin' Rebel" David Breazeale (13.93). 8 cars were locked into the main event through qualifying, with the remainder of the MSCCS field coming through 4 B-Mains. Matt Miller, David Gentry, Ray Cook, and Patrick Sheltra took B-Main victories. While Friday night used Columbus' "hybrid" format for the 40-lapper, Saturday night will feature qualifying, heat races, and B-Mains for the 50-lap, $8,000-to-win event.
At the drop of the green flag for the feature event, Babb would drop to the low side, with Earl Pearson Jr., Dan Schlieper, and, Breazeale going three-wide behind him. Breazeale would emerge quickly and jump to the top of the track, going tow-to-tow with Babb and claiming the lead. Babb would continue to run on the bottom inside Breazeale as Schlieper and Pearson both nosed in, but the action was quickly broken up with the first of only two event cautions on lap 3. Breazeale, Babb, Schlieper, Pearson, and John Gill would make up the top five at this point.
Babb would again dive under Breazeale on the restart, but the #54 would hold on as Gill and Pearson charged around the speedway door-to-door battling for 4th. Schlieper would challenge Babb for 2nd, while 10th-starting David Earl Gentry moved up into 6th on lap 5. Schlieper and Babb would continue to battle for 2nd as Breazeale built a bit of a cushion on the two.
Gill, in his first visit to "The Bullring", began to make moves as he climbed up outside of Pearson and began to challenge for 4th place. The two would dash door-to-door around the track in a heated battle, but by this time, a classic battle for the lead began to take shape, and all eyes were on the #18 of Babb and Breazeale's brand-new #54 machine.
Babb would move in under Breazeale on lap 9, and the two locked horns in a side-by-side battle that lasted until Babb took the lead on lap 12 at the exit of turn 2. As the leaders began to enter lapped traffic and Gill moved up to duel with Schlieper for 3rd place, the second and final caution of the race would fall, with Babb, Breazeale, Schieper, Gill, and Pearson in the top five.
Babb would hold the lead on the restart, and Schlieper would challenge Breazeale for second place as Gentry moved up to 5th. Gill would move up and draw Schlieper off of Breazeale, the two battling wildly ahead of Gentry and Pearson, who began fighting over the 5th spot. Babb began to build a considerable lead as the battles raged behind him, reaching lapped traffic by lap 20 as Gill took over third place, Pearson shed Gentry, and then worked his way around Schlieper to move back into 4th. Gentry followed suit to regain 5th place as Gill started working on Breazeale for the runner-up spot.
Pearson would also get into the mix, going under Gill on lap 27, but Gill would hold on, move outside Breazeale in turns 1 & 2, and follow through to take over second place at the turn 4 exit, with Babb now a full straightaway ahead. Pearson then moved in on Breazeale's low side, fell back to battle briefly with Gentry on lap 33, and then resume his challenge on Breazeale on lap 36. Double-wide the two would race for third place until Pearson took over on lap 38 out of turn 2, with Babb running to the win. Babb, running local Jay Dickens power would take home the $2,000 paycheck in what he said was as the toughest $2,000 race he had ever run, with Gill, Pearson, Breazeale, and Gentry making up the top five. Clint Smith, Anthony Rushing, Ray Cook, Jason Smith, and Matt Miller would complete the top ten.
Even more drivers are reportedly inbound for Saturday night's $8,000-to-win Rebel Challenge main event. Babb is in line to take home a grand total of $10,000 if he should win Saturday night's feature, but it will be no small feat with an incredibly talented field of drivers on hand once again for the second portion of Robert Brown's double-header.
Three other classes were also in action on Friday night, running qualifying races for the weekend's Rebel Championships. Open-Wheel Modifieds, running for $2,000-to-win on Saturday night, would run three heats, with Blake Koenigsberger over Bryan Brock in heat 1, Shay Knight over Jeremy Shaw in heat 2, and Eric Hickerson over Billy Tedford in heat 3. Late Model stock heats were won by Judson Littlejohn over Jeremy Glasgow and Billy Franklin over Johnny Smith, with the division racing for $1,000-to-win on Saturday night. David Honeycutt would charge to the front to take the Street Stock heat 1 win over Trey Bright, and TK King would pilot his badly-smoking Camaro to the heat 2 win over Scott Fulgham, with the division vying for $800-to-win on Saturday night.
Action begins an hour earlier on Saturday night. Full information is available at the Columbus Speedway Official Website located at www.ColumbusSpeedway.net .
REBEL CHALLENGE NIGHT #1
40 Laps $2,000-to-win
SUPER LATE MODEL RESULTS
1ST 18 SHANNON BABB
2ND 75 JOHN GILL
3RD 1 EARL PEARSON, JR.
4TH 54 DAVID BREAZEALE
5TH 56 DAVID GENTRY
6TH 44 CLINT SMITH
7TH 70 1/2 ANTHONY RUSHING
8TH 53 RAY COOK
9TH 12 JASON SMITH
10TH 7 MATT MILLER
11TH S9 DAN SCHLIEPER
12TH 48 MARLON WILD
13TH 71 CHRIS WALL
14TH C28 KENNY MERCHANT
15TH L97 RANDY LITTLE
16TH 58C GARRETT DURRETT
17TH 6 SCOTT SLAY
18TH 23 PATRICK SHELTRA
19TH 5 MICHAEL ENGLAND
20TH 17M DALE MCDOWELL
21ST 21 NEIL BAGGETT
22ND 33 SCOTT DEDWYLDER
23RD 222 MIKE BOLAND
24TH 71 DON O'NEAL
