It had been more than a year since Anderson driver Ricky Craig visited victory lane at Anderson Speedway. That all changed for Craig on Monday during the Best Way Disposal Figure 8 Madness night presented by Community Hospital Anderson.
Craig led the entire distance in the Marcum’s Welding Figure 8 feature chased early by Kamden Creek and Tommy Rogers. Fast qualifier Nick Warner, making his first appearance in 2022, passed Rogers on the second circuit and two laps later dispatched Creek with an outside pass entering turn one. Craig went on to win by 3.7-seconds over Warner with Creek coming home in third. “It’s been awhile since I won a feature,” Craig said in the Riley & Sons Victory Lane. “The car has been getting better every week.”
Craig made it a double by capturing the Vintage Wrench Ford Division Figure-8 taking the lead on a restart from Mike Riddle Jr. The fourth caution flag waved when Elliott McKinney and Rickie Tharp II made heavy contact in the crossover. McKinney was running in the top five at the time. Tharp had taken the lead at the start but was passed by Riddle on the third lap. Both Tharp and Riddle were sent to the tail of the field on lap 12 when Riddle spun after contact with Tharp. McKinney inherited the lead but on a lap 18 restart surrendered the point to Riddle and dropped back to fifth. On the final restart with two laps remaining, Riddle elected to start on the outside of the front row which allowed Craig to make the inside pass in turn one. Craig won by 1.5-seconds over Randy Hoppes with Tyler Dobbs coming home in third.
For the first time the Thunder Roadsters competed in a “roval race” using the Figure-8 circuit off through the crossover. Austin Cory took the lead at the start chased by Bob Lemons and Steve Holland. Fast qualifier Phil Jenkins and John Robbins took advantage of the roval section to pass Brad Kendall on the ninth circuit to move into the second and third positions. After putting pressure on Cory for several laps, Robbins made the pass in the roval on lap 16 to take the point. Robbins won by 1.8-seconds over Jenkins with Cory coming home in third. “That was a blast,” Robbins said in the Riley & Sons Victory Lane. “It was important not to lock up the brakes through the roval and from there it was flat out.”
Tony Grissom led the entire distance to capture the School Bus Figure-8 and Shawn Watson drove through the mayhem of the Trailer race to claim the victory.
