Shane Clanton, of Locust Grove, won dirt racing’s prestigious 38th Annual World 100 at Eldora (OH) Speedway last Saturday. He earned $41,000 - his biggest win ever.
It was also the first World 100 win for his car owner Ronnie Dobbins, who has fielded a machine in the race for nearly 30 years.
“He’s been racing a long time and been coming here a long time trying to win (the World 100),” Clanton said of Dobbins, who hired Clanton to drive his RSD Enterprises No. 25 in 2003. “My car owner, he said it was in his heart, the whole time I started driving, ‘We’re going to win the World 100 sometime. ‘I can believe him now.”
Drivers who have run for Ronnie Dobbins in the past include Georgia drivers like Wade Knowles, Stan Massey, Mark Miner and Mike Head.
Clanton spoke by cell phone with Dobbins during the post-race celebration. “He said he’s probably the proudest he’s ever been as a car owner,” said Clanton, who became the fourth Georgian to win the World 100, joining Charles Hughes (1976), Doug Kenimer (1977) and Dale McDowell (2005).
Clanton said Dobbins has known him since he was “an itty-bitty thing” – a four-year-old hanging around his father Billy, a hard-nosed Southern driver who preceded Shane as a World 100 entrant. (Billy Clanton made one World 100 A-Main start, finishing 24th in 1978. ) After Clanton began his own racing career by tearing up the Sportsman ranks and then entering the dirt Late Model division in 2002 with a self-funded effort, Dobbins offered him a deal he couldn’t refuse.
“In 2002 he came to me and said, ‘Hey, next year me and you are are gonna get together and go racing, ‘“ recalled Clanton. “He said, ‘I’ll buy a trailer and buy some new cars and new motors and we’ll go back out on the road if you want to do it. ‘I said, ‘Heck, I’m here to race. I’ll do whatever you want to do.’”
Clanton was victorious in his first two starts behind the wheel of Dobbins’s RSD Enterprises No. 25 in January 2003. Two years later he found himself following the WoO LMS, making his living as a race car driver after quitting his regular job.
“He gave me the opportunity to go fulltime racing,” Clanton said of Dobbins,"and here I am.”
The usually hard-charging Clanton used a smart, patient approach to steer his Custom-powered Rocket car to Victory Lane. After moving up to second place from the third starting spot at the initial green flag, he calmly chased the polesitting Jimmy Owens for more than half the distance before grabbing the lead on lap 57.
Clanton controlled the remainder of the event, rolling to the finish line with a commanding advantage over Owens’s Bloomquist car. Jeep VanWormer, of Pinconning, Mich., finished third in a MasterSbilt car after passing Matt Miller of Waterville, Ohio, with 10 laps remaining.
Clanton’s victory came in just his third career World 100 A-Main start – he finished 11th in both 2004 and 2005 – but wasn’t a surprise considering the speed he had shown at Tony Stewart’s high-banked, half-mile oval earlier this season. He set fast time and led early before finishing third in June’s $100,000 Dirt Late Model Dream 100, and he contended for victory before settling for another third-place finish in Eldora’s World of Outlaws Late Model Series ‘Subway’ 50 in July.
“We built this car for the Dream and it’s been good all three times we’ve run it here, “ said Clanton.”
Clint Smith, of Senoia, slapped the wall in a preliminary and it left him a non-qualifier for the World 100, and with a broken bone in his right wrist. “I got the right-rear in the fence and then the right-front caught and snatched the steering wheel out of my hand,” said Smith. “I knew I hurt my wrist as soon as I came to a stop.”
Smith had his injury checked out by Eldora’s safety team, but he refused to visit a hospital for further evaluation. He wrapped his hand with an Ace bandage and drove home to seek further medical attention. On Monday afternoon x-rays found that Smith snapped a bone in his wrist. He was fitted with a cast that stretches to just below his elbow.
