DATE: Monday, October 6, 1997               TAG: 9710060178

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C4   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY BRIAN J. FRENCH, STAFF WRITER

DATELINE: CAPRON                            LENGTH:   49 lines

BLANKENSHIP PULLS OUT LAST-LAP VICTORY AT LANGLEY, WARREN WINS THE LMS TITLE AND FREEMAN GETS HER FIRST VICTORY.

Sometimes, life is a bitter pill to swallow. David Blankenship forced it down Saturday night, and he and his team are $7,500 richer for it.

After lap 200 of the Franklin Fall Festival 250 at Southampton Motor Speedway, the drivers went back into the pits and Blankenship came out to pull a pill from a hat. He pulled a six, and as a result the top six drivers inverted their order for the last laps. But Blankenship rallied, passing Roger Sawyer on the inside of the backstretch to win.

Actually, he made the pass on the second last lap.

A multicar crash brought out a caution on lap 249. Sawyer, who drove into the infield to avoid Speck Edwards, took the first checkered flag, ahead of Blankenship.

But track officials said that the race could not end under a yellow or red flag, and that at least one lap of green-flag racing must take place before the white and checkered flags officially fly.

After the restart on lap 259, Blankenship made his pass, one Sawyer said never should have counted.

``We ran 250 laps, took the white flag, they called a caution on the last lap and we should have run to the checkered flag,'' Sawyer said. ``Any other organization would have ended the race at lap 250, caution or no caution.''

But Blankenship said he knew that the first checkered flag wouldn't count.

``I was a little skeptical about whether I could get around Roger, but everything worked out for us at the end,'' Blankenship said.

Winning a race on the last lap was a common theme of the night. David Bryant passed Gene Story just feet ahead of the finish line in the 40-lap Grand Stock feature after something broke off Story's car late. And Tommy Shiflett beat Danny Wyatt in the 50-lap Modifieds race by passing on the frontstretch to win.

At Langley Speedway, Phil Warren finished fifth in the 100-lap Late Model Stock feature to win the series points title. Warren becomes the first driver to win Late Model titles at Langley and Southampton in the same season.

Greg Edwards, who finished second in the points race, won for the division-leading eighth time this year.

Robbie Paul finished second in the 25-lap Pure Stock race to clinch the division title. Jimmy Adkins, who was tied with Adkins in points coming into the race, placed fifth. With Paul's title in the bag, Ginger Freeman passed him to pick up her first-ever win.

Kevin Harrison won his first Grand Stock race of the season, Joe Lupton won his track-leading 13th race of the year in the Mini Stock race and Dale Lemonds won the Legends event.

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu