AUDIO/RECAP: Greg Evans Rolls the Dice, Comes Up With Victory in Sin City Showdown

LAS VEGAS – Recap by Race Chaser Online Managing Editor Jacob Seelman – LSRTV audio — Evan Posocco/iRacing.com photo –

It may be better to be lucky than good, but Monday night at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Steel Horse Racing’s Greg Evans was downright brilliant.

Evans took advantage of a caution flag right after he made his final green flag pit stop to stay ou and assume the lead in Monday’s =RSR= Full Throttle Cup Series Sin City Showdown and used the track position to hold off a snarling pack of cars behind him over the closing 27-lap sprint to take his second career FTCS victory and first of the season.

The final run was set up by a crash involving Jose Gonzalez and Joey Gattina at lap 93 — after the race, Evans admitted that he wasn’t sure if the strategy was going to pay off the closer he got to the checkered flag, knowing that both Thomas George and David Comstock had better cars than he did over the stretch run.

“Right before the caution came out I had just pitted, so I only had a lap or two on my tires,” Evans said of his late race strategy. “I was back in like 22nd after running in the top five, so I knew my only chance to win was to do two tires or no tires. I knew that being out front in clean air was a huge advantage.”

“After I held the 30 (Brian Macklin) off I thought I had it until I saw [Comstock] coming. I thought to myself, ‘Here we go again, gotta go a little harder’. Just managed to hang on and it paid off big tonight. Glad to get this win for the Steel Horse guys.”

Comstock tried everything he could to grab the lead in the final laps, diving into turn one and clearing Evans with four laps to go and again with two laps to go, but washed up the race track and saw Evans cross him back by off of turn two both times.

“It was tough to pass tonight, you really had to run the middle of the corner to keep off the bumps — I figured that was Greg’s only plan was to protect the middle,” Comstock said. “I had done a slide on (Eric) Brundies in turn one and figured ‘Why not give it a shot to try and go for the lead?'”

“I got him the first time but we ran into a lap car down the back and I just couldn’t stay to the outside. The second time it just didn’t quite work out; I couldn’t get the car to rotate up off the corner and at that point the right front tire just couldn’t take any more. Still a good night though.”

George led the most laps (40) on the night, but was cleared out battling with Macklin for second down the backstretch with 12 laps to go and ultimately finished ninth.

“Brian cooked his tires, got tight out of the corner from what I could tell and the only thing that saved me was backing out of the corner a little bit because I didn’t want to try and pass him going into three. It’s a racing deal, there was nothing I could really do but it sucks because we had such a good car.”

Macklin did take responsibility following the incident – his car was wounded slightly but still crossed the line in 11th.

“I over drove the corner and got into the wall, and he had nowhere to go,” the Cody Byus Racing driver said. “I was trying to catch the 23 and make a pass and just drove the car too hard. I was good for about 15 laps on each run, then started to fall back — so I knew i had to go as quick as possible and then try to defend, otherwise I wasn’t going to have a chance. It just didn’t work out, and I hate that it took Thomas with us.”

One Up Motorsports’ Dwayne Vincent came home third, with former series champions Chad Cole and Brundies rounding out the top five at the checkered flag.

L. Bryce Whitson Jr. was the hard charger of the race, moving from 35th to 6th on the night, ahead of Steel Horse Racing’s Dan Murray and Bobby Terrell (subbing for Johnathon Caddell) following in seventh and eighth. George and C.J. LaVair capped off the top ten.

Adam Benefiel won the pole and led 29 of the first 41 laps of the event, but suffered connection issues and fell three laps down as a result. He was unable to rebound and finished 33rd.

The race was slowed by caution three times for 14 laps and saw 11 lead changes between nine different drivers.

Despite his late race troubles, George assumed the regular season points lead by two markers over Cole, with Caddell one point further back in third.

The =RSR= Full Throttle Cup Series returns to the track on Monday, March 16 for the Phoenix 200K from the Jewel in the Desert, Phoenix International Raceway (9:30 p.m. Eastern on LSRTV).

Audio with race winner Greg Evans: