| ANTHONY ANDERS TAKES LATE MODEL WIN, STOPPING THE WARD WIN STREAK AT SEVEN | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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By Reese Fant
Contrubuting Writer / Greenville News Anthony Anders has felt strong, and capable of getting the job done for the last month, but it wasn't until Saturday night, in the 40-lap Late Model Stock feature race at Greenville-Pickens Speedway, that he managed to accomplish what he wanted to do. Anders made it to victory circle. In the process, he outran Marty Ward, who has been so strong for two solid months only a lightening bolt was able to keep him from winning. Anders stopped Ward's seven race winning streak, and relegated him to runner-up status for the evening. The loss wasn't a terrible thing for Ward, who smiled, said, "strings are made to be broken. Now I can try to start a new one. Besides, tonight I collected 48 points toward the National Championship. "I'll tell you something else," Ward said. "Right there at the end, on the restart with three laps left, there was almost enough room for me to slip in and go three wide. That would have been fun." Anders was delighted with the victory, and he didn't take the point until three laps from the end. Up to then, Coleman Pressley was leading, with Anders and Ward chasing him. But on the restart, Anders got by Pressley, as did Ward, and Ward was talking about almost having the inside sport in the corner with the other two cars. It would sound like the start of a very bad wreck until one takes into account the driving ability of all three drivers. And Anders won. "For the past few weeks, I thought my car was as fast as anybody. We could get close but we just couldn't succeed. Tonight we succeeded. I won. I haven't started on the front but one time all year, and I didn't start there tonight. But, when I got to cars in front of me, I could get through the middle of the corners a little better than them, and I picked them off. "I am so proud," Anders said. "This is got to be one of the most competitive tracks in the nation, and to win here is special. Nobody can say Marty Ward isn't tough, and he was right back there for that three-lap shootout at the end, but we were pretty quick and we won." While Anders was stopping Ward's winning streak, nothing can stop the Marietta native's assault at the points championship. "Jeff Hawkins has won the title five times, and I intend to catch him this year," Ward said. "When I first started thinking about points, it was track championship points I was thinking about. Now I have a good (112-point) lead over David Roberts, and I think I will be very close to the top in national points this week." To be chasing Jeff Hawkins is a little ironic for Ward. Hawkins won his first track title in 1964, the same year Ward was born. Hawkins won again in 1967, 68, 69, and 70. By then Ward was all of six years old. "I've known Jeff all my life," Ward said. "He won championships here on both dirt and asphalt, and it's an honor to be close to tying his record. I started racing here in 1983. Gene Morgan won the championship in 1982, and I bought his car. I won my first title in 1990." One thing Ward did win Saturday night was the annual Pit Crew Challenge, where his crew got him into and out of the pits in 23.8 seconds. Ward's crew defeated Kenneth Headen's and David Roberts' crews. Asheville's Coleman Pressley returned to race at GPS after being absent for several weeks, and finished third, with Roberts fourth and Headen fifth. In the Sportsman division, current points leader Tim Lollis moved up from his seventh-place starting position to take the checkered flag. He now leads Chris Chastain by 16 points. Randy Ballew was the chief competition, and he came all the way up from 10th to challenge. Stanley Pressley finished third, with Jamie Altop and Bob Root rounding out the top five. Ricky Stephens grabbed victory in the first Charger main, as James Johnson, Tyler Stephens Kenneth Powell, and Mitchell Mote completed the top five. In the second Charger main, points leader Les Mahaffey was the winner, with Zachary Pressley second, Johnny Rainey third, Scott Mann fourth and Mike Hughes fifth. Mahaffey is now six points ahead of Mann in the standings. Freddy Hale, Jr., win the first Renegade race, with Benny Taylor taking second. Dale Stancil was third, with Terry Hawthorne fourth and Dale Walker fifth. Walker is still the points leader, sitting 40 ahead of Percy Proctor.
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