Michael Norris earns surprise World of Outlaws win at Lernerville

Michael Norris crushed it.

Sarver's Norris, 24, started on the pole of Friday night's 30-lap main event and didn't flinch on his way to his first World of Outlaws Late Model Series victory at Lernerville Speedway.

“With two to go, I thought, ‘We can win this thing,' ” Norris said as fireworks exploded behind him and the crowd cheered. “I never thought in a million years that I would beat the World of Outlaws.”

Norris capped a solid second night of the three-day Firecracker 100 event. Norris finished sixth in the main event Thursday, also a 30-lap, $6,000-to-win feature. Saturday's Firecracker 100 will pay $30,000 to the winner of the 100-lap feature.

“I probably won't go to bed,” Norris said.

“These guys are no joke. When we are at work during the week, they are working on their cars. There are a lot of really good teams, and I owe this to my team. Every week this season we have been trying new things, even if we had won the week before.”

The victory for Norris is the first for a Lernerville regular against the World of Outlaws since Ed Lynch Jr. in Sprint Cars won the 2002 Don Martin Memorial Silver Cup.

Devin Moran of Dresden, Ohio, finished second. Chris Madden of Gaffney, S.C., who won Thursday, finished third. Brandon Sheppard of New Berlin, Ill., was fourth, and Mike Marlar of Winfield, Tenn., took fifth.

Madden's finish was overshadowed by the excitement of Norris' victory, but he was pleased entering Saturday's main event.

“Tonight was a little trial and error,” Madden said. “Taking third was OK.”

The feature had just one caution, on the first lap. Chub Frank went off the top of the track, and when he rolled back on he was run into by Jared Miley, who had nowhere to go. On the restart, Moran got the nose of his car in position to take the lead, but Norris said he did not see Moran and held the lead.

After that, the issue was how Norris would get through the eventual lapped traffic, which he started to catch on Lap 9.

“We got stuck by those two lapped cars and just couldn't get around,” Moran said. “We had a really good car. I was pretty good on that caution, but I don't know if a caution at the end would have helped us.”

Norris started the feature on the pole with David Breazeale next to him on the front row. Madden started on the inside of the third row.

After a nearly hourlong rain delay just as qualifying began, the night continued at a rapid pace and the feature went green at 9:19 p.m.

But on the first lap, the pace suddenly stopped after the Frank-Miley accident. Frank had a flat tire and more damage as he was taken off the track via a tow truck, and Miley had to be pulled out of the mud near the fence over the top of Turn 4.

Miley, Alex Ferree and Gregg Satterlee were the only current or former weekly Lernerville drivers other than Norris to make their way into the feature.

Qualifying showed better times than Thursday, with 34 of 39 cars under 16 seconds. Marlar was again fastest car with a time of 14.812 seconds. Norris was second in 14.837. Breazeale was third at 14.932, Moran fourth in 15.01 and Shane Clanton rounded out the top five in 15.016.

Qualifying was better than any other World of Outlaws Late Model event at Lernerville. Marlar's time beat the track record of 15.00 set by Rick Eckert on June 23, 2011.

There were four heats, and the top four from each transferred to the feature.

Winners included Marlar, Moran, Norris and Breazeale. Ferree finished fourth in the final heat.

Thomas Zuck is a freelance writer.