SUPR Late Models
Jones Motor Speedway
March 21, 2012
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Litton becomes 5th all-time winner with SUPR win at Jones Motor Speedway



by Bryan Wimberley
CHATHAM, La. (March 17) - Two-time Southern United Professional Racing Series champion, Rob Litton of Alexandria, La., put another notch in his late model career belt, becoming fifth on the series' overall win list Saturday night. Litton picked up a $2,500 payday with his two-length victory over Allen Tippen at Jones Motor Speedway and took an early season points lead. Litton now ties Ronnie Poche, in grabbing his 26th SUPR victory at the 1/4-mile oval in Chatham, Louisiana.

Polesitter Litton had to fight off a handful of challenges by Tippen, who repeatedly tried changing his racing line and showed Litton his nose on a couple of occasions. The 50-lap win was never secure until the last two corners, barring a slip by Litton, with Tippen ready to pounce. Third-row starter, Tippen of Minden, La., won the series' previous visit to Jones Motor Speedway last August, but would have to settle for second this time around.

"We were definitely too tight on turns three & four and I thought I could hear Tippen every now and then. We would push awful bad, but I felt like we were really good on the other end of the track. We could pull away from him in turns one & two. I believe the car was that good in those corners and I didn't think the track conditions were too bad. We didn't have to go around somebody and where we were racing, it didn't present a problem for us. I knew there were some holes a little higher up on the surface, but we didn't have to get up there.

You could see who you were coming up on for a lap or two and prepare ahead of time. You could watch where they were running, try to plan ahead and go in high and come out low or whatever the situation called for. Most all the cars we encountered, did a good job of getting out of the way. Once they were contacted on the radio that the leaders were coming, they would stay out of the botton of the track, which was where we mostly ran," Litton said.

Chris Holley of Dayton, Tex., advance six positions from his 9th-starting spot, to finish third. Holley battled back from a troubled heat race, where he had to nurse his car, suffering from a bad ball joint on the left front, all-the-while his right front brake kept locking up. Holley's reward for the turnaround, puts him just 45 markers back in the early season points chase.

"We may have knocked the tow out on the car a little bit and received little nose damage. I ran out of tear-offs about halfway through the race and couldn't see anything. We had to re-bleed the brakes before the feature and it seemed to fix our problem we experienced in the heat race. The spring cup on the left front shock fell out, so the front end was bottoming out around the whole track in the heat race. It put us behind the eight ball all night, but we ended up recovering from it to do alright. The track was slimy on the bottom and dry up top, so it was kind of a run-where-you-could to miss some cars for us. It was a good finish for us, we knocked the right front fender off in that big melee they had there, all-in-all though it was a good run for the Erb Racing Team and our First Class Septic sponsor," said Holley.

Derek Perkins of Oakdale, La., took home a solid fourth place at Chatham, engaging Holley in a great mid-race battle for position, only to relinquish it in the closing laps of the race. Perkins currently leads the battle for SUPR Rookie of the Year.

"I could hear Chris (Holley) back there and knew he was close. I kept trying to hit my marks, we went down in turn three and my rack-and-pinion just locked to the right. I kept having hard spots after that, but nonetheless it was a pretty good run for us -I am happy with it!" Perkins said.

Perkins added, "Since being out with motor problems for an extended period last year, I am going through a learning curve all over again this season. We have completely changed everything from last year, engine-wise, suspension-wise, so we are trying to learn the car with a fresh start. Rob (Litton) has really helped us out a lot and it speeds up the learning process to run behind a veteran, seeing where their lines are on the track and where they enter and go through the turns."

Zach McMillan of Gladewater, Tex., had his most impressive run of his young late model career, rounding out the top five finishers. McMillan climbed all the way from 12th-starting position, to grab fifth, keeping a clean nose and staying out of trouble.

"At the start, I found my line and got going pretty good. We kept dodging that hole in turn one throughout the race and was fortunate to miss that early wreck by going low. We came close to hitting Chris Holley, but was able to avoid most everything. Consistency paid off tonight and it helps. We would have some good laps, but would drop back a bit when we had a bad lap in there. You just try to gain momentum more times than not with constantly running smooth and we are trying to work on that, since we are new to late models," stated McMillan.

Litton got the jump at the drop of the green, leading Bubba Mullins, Tippen, Perkins and Chris Patton on lap one. Soon after, Jim Bryant of Natchitoches, La., would bring out the first yellow and limp to the pit area for a left rear tire issue.

The restart would come to a grinding halt, when a six-car accident would block the track near turn one. Lee Patton of Ruston, La., flipped when his car caught a rough patch on the track, collecting a host of other racers. Although landing on its roof, Patton would come away with just cuts and bruises from the wreckage. The Shane Walker-owned No. 10w car driven by Patton, received some body, fuel cell bracket and spindle damage.

Also taken out by the crash was Robbie Stuart, Derek Rashall and Chris Huckabay. Stuart's car would receive significant damage to the body, a bent rear clip and tore up carburetor & radiator.

"I am okay," Stuart said. "Luckily with a good seat and HANS device, everything is good."

After the red flag was lifted and the track cleared, the race carried on. Litton re-established the lead on Mullins, as the former SUPR champion hit lapped traffic on lap 8.

Litton, Mullins and Tippen broke away from fourth-running Derek Perkins by over six seconds. Mullins drew closer to Litton, just before his car slowed to bring out the third caution. Mullins would retire on lap 14 from camshaft troubles.

Another brief yellow for a spun car would follow three laps later, but once the field went green again, Robbie Starnes of Baytown, Tex., took fifth from Nicholas Brown of Hodge. On lap 21, Starnes would experience a broken lower rear end shaft that would take him out of his top 5 run -retiring him to 10th.

Tippen makes a move to go side-by-side with Litton for the lead, near the halfway mark of the feature. Tippen's inside maneuver, pushed Litton to run high, but Litton throttled up on the frontstretch to maintain the point.

Meanwhile, third-running Perkins began to feel heat from a charging Chris Holley.

Holley said, "Derek (Perkins) ran really good tonight, I ran out of tear-offs, so I couldn't get too close to him. It would take two or three laps to clear my helmet off, then I would get back up there to make another charge at him. I finally got him, it was a fun time racing against him and was a real clean race with us. We went at each other pretty good!"

Three separate battles of two, for the top six positions had taken shape on the track -Litton was trying to hold off a constant barrage by Tippen for first, Holley passed Perkins on lap 36 for third and Zach McMillan was trying to fight off Nicholas Brown for fifth.

"We had a good race with the 84 (Nicholas Brown), he was in front of us earlier. I could hear him later back there towards the end of the race. I could see his nose every now-and-then. I really wanted to push the issue and catch up with the frontrunners, but my tires weren't there. It was either take off the bottom corner or hit the wall and I believe we did both tonight. It was real slick in the middle of turn two and it pushed us near the wall a few times. If you managed to stay up high and not hit the wall, you just couldn't go anywhere," McMillan described.

With ten to go, Tippen drove his No. 71a deep into the corner of turn two, but lost ground to Litton on exit. By the time Tippen was able to regain momentum to chase down Litton again, Litton was crossing the finish line to victory.

"We knew it was going to be one line and tried to get there as soon as possible. At the start, we tried to take what we could off-the-bat. We probably would have finished third, if it wasn't for Bubba (Mullins) have some sort of motor problems. If we would have been in front of Litton, it would have most likely turned out the same way and us finishing ahead. Litton did bobble and we tried to get underneath him, but we got in the mud and wasn't able to pull off the pass. I knew if I would have stayed beside him exiting, it would have taken us both out of the race. We just settled in and was hoping for a mistake on his part, but he never wavered after that. I think I showed my cards to him (Litton) too early.

We moved around the track a lot, I seen that hole and especially after the big wreck. Under caution we looked at it and I knew I didn't need to be anywhere around it. I went into turns high & low to try and see where we could pick up an advantage on Rob, but he just run a perfect race. With the way things were, we had to settle for second, but I didn't like doing it!" stated Tippen.

Notes: Litton's Rocket Race Car is powered by Wall2Wall Performance Engines and sponsored by LMS Truck Center, Larry Grayson & Son Trucking, Crooks and Litton Racing, Swan Lake Flying Services and TWM Racing Products.

Litton has three victories in the last seven series' events, dating back to August of last season and while taking the checkered flags at Chatham on Saturday night, he becomes the SUPR leader in victories at the 25-year old speedway, with three wins (March '12, September '01, May '00).

Five other drivers have (2) series' victories at Chatham (Adams, R.Ingalls, Merchant, Prince, Tippen).

Litton only trails Kenny Merchant (57), Doug Ingalls (41), David Ashley (39) and Ronnie Adams (36) in overall series wins -Ingalls and Adams is the only current active late model drivers among the top four listed.

The feature started at 10:33 pm, had five cautions, including a brief red-flag for the multi-car accident on lap 1 and had seven cars running at the finish. The SUPR Series event was a double-points race.

Top ten hard charger of the feature went to Joey Couvillion of Pineville, La., who went from 17th-to-eighth. Couvillion debuted a new Rocket Race Car and is projected to run for series' Rookie of the Year.

A cut left rear tire on lap 35 would bring Couvillion's night to a premature end at Jones.

Mullins had a Jones Motor Speedway-stronghold recently, winning the last three late model events ran at the track, including a $2,500 victory at last season's unsanctioned Spooky 50. The other two wins came at the speedway's weekly super late model races.

Brock Williams of Leesville, La., had carburetor problems, making him miss his heat race. After trying three different ones, the No. 4x team used one borrowed from fellow racer Robbie Starnes to start the feature -Williams finished 14th.

The Southern United Professional Racing Series will have a three-week break and return to racing on April 7th, at Boothill Speedway in Greenwood, Louisiana.

SUPR at Jones Motor Speedway: (1) Rob Litton, (2) Allen Tippen, (3) Chris Holley, (4) Derek Perkins, (5) Zach McMillan, (6) Nicholas Brown, (7) Jim Bryant, (8) Joey Couvillion, (9) Chris Patton, (10) Robbie Starnes, (11) Bubba Mullins, (12) Mark Dison, (13) Jody Prince, (14) Brock Williams, (15) Lee Patton, (16) Robbie Stuart, (17) Chris Huckabay, (18) Derek Rashall.

Heat race winners (among 18 cars): Mullins, Litton, Bryant

SUPR Series point standings
(Top 15 through March 17th)
1. Rob Litton - 364
2. Chris Holley - 319
3. Derek Perkins - 306
4. Allen Tippen - 288
5. Robbie Starnes - 258
6. Zach McMillan - 246
7. Jim Bryant - 225
8. Nicholas Brown - 206
9. Joey Couvillion - 180
10. Chris Patton - 178
11. Bubba Mullins - 160
12. Brock Williams - 146
13. Mark Dison - 142
14. Jody Prince - 134
15. Jack Sullivan - 128

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A-Main  
1 6X Robert Litton Alexandria, LA
2 71A Allen Tippen Minden, LA
3 28H Chris Holley Dayton, TX
4 22 Derek Perkins Oakdale, LA
5 14z Zach McMillan Gladewater, TX
6 84 Nicholas Brown Hodge, LA
7 7X Jim Bryant Natchitoches, LA
8 J1 Joey Couvillion Pineville, LA
9 1 Chris Patton Ruston, LA
10 77S Robbie Starnes Baytown, TX
11 11 David Mullins W Monroe, LA
12 23 Mark Dison Shreveport, LA
13 10P Jody Prince Sibley, LA
14 4X Brock Williams Alexandria, LA
15 JP5 Lee Patton Ruston, LA
16 6R Robbie Stuart Deridder, LA
17 D6 Chris Huckabay West Monroe, LA
18 188 Derek Rashall Dayton, TX

Heat #1  
1 11 David Mullins W Monroe, LA
2 1 Chris Patton Ruston, LA
3 28H Chris Holley Dayton, TX
4 77S Robbie Starnes Baytown, TX
5 6R Robbie Stuart Deridder, LA
6 188 Derek Rashall Dayton, TX

Heat #2  
1 6X Robert Litton Alexandria, LA
2 JP5 Lee Patton Ruston, LA
3 71A Allen Tippen Minden, LA
4 10P Jody Prince Sibley, LA
5 D6 Chris Huckabay West Monroe, LA
6 J1 Joey Couvillion Pineville, LA

Heat #3  
1 7X Jim Bryant Natchitoches, LA
2 22 Derek Perkins Oakdale, LA
3 84 Nicholas Brown Hodge, LA
4 14z Zach McMillan Gladewater, TX
5 23 Mark Dison Shreveport, LA
6 4X Brock Williams Alexandria, LA