Photo Credit: Gerald Harris
It was a peaceful and quiet morning in the Great Smokey Mountains of Newport’ TN on Saturday August 13th, up until the Southeast Super Trucks Series roared into town. It was a scorcher of a day as the sun beamed down around a almost 100 degrees. The teams unloaded and started getting ready for the day, making last minute adjustments before practice began.
Mart Nesbitt paced the drivers for the first couple practice sessions and he looked to be carrying his momentum forward from the previous races. Tissot, the reigning SEST champion, picked up the pace and sat on top of the final practice speed charts. Nesbitt went on to set fast time in qualifying, however he rolled a four on the invert dice. As a result, Kevin Leicht now inherited the top spot to start the race with Tissot on his outside.
Tissot quickly got the jump on Leicht on the initial start of the race, however the first caution didn’t take long as Toby Hollifield spun on the track. As Tissot paced the field back to the green flag, younger Leicht brother Matt began to work his way towards the front and started to apply heavy pressure on his brother Kevin till the second caution came out due to debris on the back stretch. Once again Tissot, set sail to a great restart, while Matt finally was able to successfully make the pass and take over the second position.
The third caution came out on Lap 21 as Ed Surrett spun coming out of turn four, and Tissot once again had a great restart and began to pull away; this time it was Dakota Slagle who began to move towards the front of the field and worked his way inside the top five. The caution came back out on Lap 32 for debris again this time in turn 2, and while under caution Slagle and Surrett ducked down pit road to make adjustments. As Tissot lead the field back to the restart again, the field bunched up causing Nesbitt to get tangled up with a couple other trucks and loop around. On this restart it looked as if Matt wanted the lead bad to possibly make it two wins in a row, as he was battling side by side with Tissot for the lead.
A little further back, Surrett had moved his way back up into the top five as he passed Bowers while Matt wasn’t able to get around Tissot, so he just ducked back down in behind him and followed his tracks. With just 20 laps to go every one started getting dicey and battles began through out the whole field as Surret and Jeff Myers raced side by side for 4th for several laps.
It was Tissot’s night however as he went on to capture the checkered flag for the fourth time this season; he was followed by Matt Leicht in second, Kevin Leicht in third, Jeff Myers in fourth, and Ed Surrett who made a nice rebound to take home the fifth place.
Official Results
1. 27 Lee Tissot
2. 2 Matt Leicht
3. 25 Kevin Leicht
4. 4 Jeff Myers
5. 8 Ed Surrett
6. 61 Ricky Bowers
7. 21 Jamie Barbery
8. 66 Bennie Davis
9. 92 Mart Nesbitt
10. 13 Dakota Slagle
11. 5 Toby Hollifield
