Jake Finch Wins Show Me the Money Spring Explosion 100 With Last Lap Pass

The old saying goes you only need to lead one lap in racing to be the winner, and Jake Finch did just that at Montgomery Motor Speedway on Saturday night.

Finch, the current Show Me the Money Series Pro Late Models points leader set fast time in qualifying. After the redraw, he started fifth on the grid in his red and white Ronnie Sanders Racing No. 18.

Jim Wall and Dylan Fetcho led the field to the green in the Spring Explosion 100. Wall jumped out to the early lead and held the top spot for much of the early going.

Augie Grill, who started seventh, picked off cars very methodically as made his way towards the front runners. On lap 25, the top three were Wall, Grill and Finch.

After a caution restart on lap 46, Grill drove his No. 43 car by Wall for the lead and opened a large gap from the rest of the field. As the laps ticked down, Wall had his hands full with Finch as they battled for second place.

Grill, who already has 15 career Show Me the Money Series wins, was looking to make it an even 16 in the record books. However, the fate of the race changed in the final 10 laps for the five-time Alabama 200 winner.

Finch got by Wall and with nine to go and was 1.4 seconds behind the leader of Grill. As they navigated some lap traffic, the lead shrunk to .5 seconds with five laps to go.

As they raced through turns one and two after taking the white flag, Finch laid just enough front bumper to Grill's rear bumper to upset his car.

By the time they exited Turn two, Finch was the new leader. Grill took one last shot at Finch as they went down the backstretch, but Finch pulled away and took the win.

“We obviously had a really good race car tonight and sat on the pole,” Finch said in Victory Lane. “The invert kind of screwed me. I hope nobody was listening in on my radio because I was pretty frustrated there for much of the race.

“It’s hard to pass with the motors we have in these cars and I didn’t think I was going to be able to catch Augie. When I got to him, I obviously didn’t mean to run into him like I did and I hate that. He’s always raced me clean and I look up to him.

“I felt like that was my only chance and my brakes were going away, so I took it.”

After exiting his car on the frontstretch, Grill approached Finch to congratulate him before they patted each other on the shoulders and separated

“He was able to save his stuff better than I was, that’s what it came down to for us,” Grill said. “I took a shot at him after he passed me, but that’s now how I like to race.

“I hate it for my team, I thought we had this one in the bag to win.”

-Photo credit: Reid Scott, Liberty Racing Review

SPRING EXPLOSION 100 UNOFFICIAL RESULTS