Pearson Lee Dominates Drydene Finale at Modoc

3/1/2020 Pearson Lee Dominates Drydene Finale at Modoc

Pearson Lee Dominates in Drydene Extreme Series Finale

With less than 30 starts in a super late model, Pearson Lee Williams picked up his first win in dominating fashion. P.L. lead 36 out of 40 laps in the $7,000 to win feature at Modoc Raceway Saturday night. This was the final round of the Drydene Extreme Series that spanned from December through this weekend. 

The feature was red flagged only 3 laps in due to poor track conditions. There was so much dust getting blown off the bottom of the track, it was nearly impossible for drivers or fans to see what was going on. P.L. inherited the lead just as the caution came out and the leader at the time had an issue that took him out of the race. Track position has always been extremely important at Modoc Raceway, as the bottom groove is usually the only option for speed. Having the best track position possible, P.L. took advantage of not having to pass a single car for the rest of the race. He set his #2 Rum Runner Racing Longhorn on what looked like cruise control and maintained a solid lead the entire race. 

A few late race restarts gave second place Zach Mitchell a few shots at stealing the win, but Harold Holly had the #2 glued to the track and P.L. never missed a single mark. Within a couple laps of each restart, the lead was stretched back out to almost 2 seconds. After the final restart, with no lap traffic in sight, Pearson Lee brought the #2 to the checkered flag picking up the biggest win of his career.  

We have a lot of new and returning partners on the #2 this season, and it was great to get them into victory lane so soon. We can’t thank everyone enough at Longhorn Chassis, Bilstein Shocks, PFC Brakes, SRI Performance, Draco Springs, Race-Fan, Air-Shok, Simpson, Stilo, Molecule, Willys Carb & Dyno, Wiles Driveshafts, VP Racing Fuels, Mullins Racing Engines, Shoenfeld Headers, DriveRefine, JRS Competition Finishes, Dirtwrap, ETG, and Hoosier Tires by Brian.

I can’t explain how proud I am of P.L. and the whole Rum Runner team. Speedweeks was rough for everyone, but there was so much learning done during that three-week span. When you take a young driver that hasn’t raced supers, much less supers against the best of the best, there is going to be a good amount of struggling. Dirt super late model racing in general is tough. Georgia/Florida Speedweeks is ten times tougher and it lasts 3 weeks. We as a team had to manage expectations and focus on the positives that we got out of each night. The end results didn’t look like much on paper, but when you dive a little deeper and pay attention to the details, P.L. learned more in those three weeks than he learned in the last 5 years. That is impressive. That was on full display Saturday night. 

Having raced more already in 2020 than he raced last year, look for P.L. to turn more heads and visit victory lane multiple times this season. He is only going to get better, and as he continues to adjust and improve, our race program will as well. I know that I am biased, but I think we have the beginnings of a dominating combination of team, driver, a support from our partners. 

Schedule updates will be coming soon to rumrunnerracing.net. Stay tuned for more action from Rum Runner Racing, Joey Coulter, and Pearson Lee Williams.