Brandon Overton looked like he might have been able to steal a win from Mike Marlar, who dominated much of the race, but came up a spot short after Marlar turned up the wick on a final restart to wrestle the lead back from Overton and run away with it.

Overton started the feature in sixth and rode around there and even slipped back to 7th at one point for much of the early portion of the 40-lap race. However, caution came out with 30 laps to go after Josh Putnam spun and collected Grayson Brewer in turn 2 while simultaneously Logan McClanahan broke a motor and exited the track. On the ensuing restart, Overton began to work to the front while staying committed to the bottom. He slipped underneath both Michael Page and Oakley Johns to get to fifth.  A couple of laps later he worked past Dalton Cook as well to advance to fourth. 

After a slew of cautions just before the halfway mark, Dalton Cook made a strong move on a restart to get past Overton and then get underneath both Dale McDowell and Sam Seawright down the back stretch. On one of the few occasions where Overton went to the top, he worked past McDowell when they got back to 1 and 2 to get back to fourth. A few laps later and he made the pass of the race. First, he executed a stellar move diamonding off of 4 to get underneath Dalton Cook. He then carried his momentum through 1 and 2 to draw beside Seawright down the back stretch. However, Cook did not go away, he got to the inside of Overton as they entered 3. Overton split both of them and took complete control of second exiting turn 4.

After a caution with 16 to go, Sam Seawright was able to get by him, but Overton worked the bottom and was able to reclaim the spot a couple of laps later, but Marlar was able to escape. Fortunately, he got another chance as another caution brought Marlar back to him with 11 laps left. 

Overton had a much better restart and gave Marlar a significant challenge, but Marlar was able to keep his momentum on the top and fended off the challenge and began to gap him. But Overton would get a second chance as a caution with 8 to go flew for debris. Overton had his best restart and took the lead from Marlar down the back stretch and tried to upset Marlar’s momentum exiting turn 4 by drifting to the top. Marlar crossed him over as they crossed the start/finish line and tried to retake the lead with a slider into 1. As Marlar drifted up the track, Overton was strong on the bottom and reclaimed the lead. Overton would stay committed to the bottom of the rest of the race and Marlar would take advantage of that and eventually got his momentum going and took it to another level driving past Overton on the back stretch with 5 to go and then never looking back.

In his podium interview, Overton made no bones about what he needed to do to get the win, “Looking back now, it’s easy just to say I should’ve just moved up. He didn’t never really come down there and chop me off so once I did clear him a little bit I moved up. Like I said, I should’ve just got up there and started hammering it. But it is what it is.”

Despite coming up a spot short, Overton was satisfied with his car and optimistic for tonight’s Deep Fried 75, “I was, honestly, tickled about our car. I felt like I could run the bottom pretty good. I was actually pretty good in the middle. So I mean I’ll take it. Like I said, I never really went to the top just ’cause the tire situation we was on, really we all have soft left rear tires on. I was like, ‘Man, it’s got to die sometime.’ But I think Mikey just started mashing it harder. So anyway, like I said, congrats to him. Congrats to Ashton.”

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