Ward Avoids Crash, Fight to Take Victory

A last lap crash, post race confusion and a Friday night short track brawl left fans talking after the June 26 Walls' Roofing UCAR Clash Race at Wake County Speedway, but 'Rowdy' Rob Ward avoided the drama and quietly slipped off with the big trophy in his first Clash race of the season.

All eyes were on Wake County regulars Kevin Herndon and Robert Arch, who dominated their two heat races and made up the front row of the feature. Points leader Keith Brame Jr. pulled into the track a mere 20 minutes before the feature event after driving to a 2nd place run at Ace Speedway earlier in the evening.

Arch set the pace early, pulling ahead of Herndon and the rest of the field before an early caution for a crash in turn four between Travis Taylor and Jason Miller. All cars continued on.

Herndon took the lead after the restart and pulled away from the field, nearly putting points leader Brame a lap down before a caution for the spinning David Wiggins bunched the field back up. Herndon would pace the field until a late race caution by Kelley Bottomley set up a six lap dash for the finish.

On the restart, Arch pulled to the inside of Herndon, the two making contact through turns one and two. On the backstretch, Arch touched the rear bumper of Herndon, sending the #58 Geo head on into the inside wall.

A lap after the cars took the caution flag, with Arch leading, track owner Glenn Simpkins made the call to end the race on lap 45 due to Wake County's noise ordinance. The checkered flag was thrown without consulting Clash officials.

After much debate and confusion, including Arch's celebratory climb up onto the roof of his car on the front stretch, The win was handed to second place driver Rob Ward. According to Larry Walls, the Clash series director, if the race would have returned to green flag racing, both Herndon (whose car was disabled) and Arch would have been sent to the rear of the field for their incident. Clash rules state both cars involved in an accident, regardless of fault, are penalized.

That would have placed Ward at the front of the pack. Since the race was never restarted, Ward was the winner. After the race, Deac McCaskill, owner of Herndon's car and Robert Arch had a confrontation at the track's scale area. A brawl erupted with both teams throwing punches and crew members from other teams jumping into the fray.

The cars of both Arch and Herndon were disqualified for their roles in the fight and stripped of the evening's purse and points. McCaskill's entire #58 team has been suspended from the next UCAR Clash race. Arch, who was already on probation for an incident that occurred earlier this year at Fayetteville Motor Speedway, has been suspended for the rest of the season.

After the smoke cleared, Second place was given to Shane Phillips. Mike Strickland was scored in third and Brame, who started 19th on the field, was scored in fourth. Second place points driver Renno Marchetti IV rounded out the top five.