John Bolen Charges to Win Show Me The Money Pro Late Model Series Disturbing the Peace 100

What a race, and what a weekend it was for John Bolen at Montgomery Motor Speedway. The driver of the No. 2 Bolen Construction Pro Late Model took an emphatic victory in Saturday night's 100-lap Show Me The Money Pro Late Model Series Disturbing the Peace 100, and in doing so he became the fourth different winner after four races in the 2024 season.

The 38-year-old Bolen, who turned the fastest lap in practice 1, practice 2, and in qualifying for Saturday night's race, would fire off from the seventh-starting spot due to drawing a seven in the qualifying invert, which was applied following the qualifying session.

However, being relegated to starting in the seventh position wasn't enough of an obstacle to stop Bolen. Not even close.

When the green flag was displayed to the field of 17 cars, Bolen knifed his machine through the running order like a hot knife through butter, and with five laps to spare before the half-way point in the event, he muscled his way past Jim Wall for the race lead.

"Yeah, we had a really good car," Bolen said after the race. "Like I said, didn't have to work too hard to get around. Can't thank everybody at the Eury's and Fury enough."

It looked like Bolen had the race in the bag as Jake Finch, driving the No. 18 Phoenix Construction entry, trailed Bolen by nearly two seconds with under 10 laps to go. Then, an issue with Hunter Johnson's No. 88 machine forced the driver to come to a stop in Turn 2 with nine laps remaining, which would bring out a late-race caution.

While the caution gave Finch, and the rest of the field, an opportunity to mentally believe they may have something for Bolen on the impending restart, that thought was nothing more than a mere hallucination.

Bolen would put his foot through the floorboard as he charged to the finish. The native of Jasper, AL, would take the win by 1.961 seconds over Finch. Saturday's victory marks the third triumph of Bolen's 50-race career in the Show Me The Money Pro Late Model Series.

After scoring the win, Bolen sounded a bit emotional about the level of race car that his team brought to Montgomery on Saturday night.

"Man, I gotta give hats off to all of my guys, everybody back at Fury Race Cars. We've done a lot over the last year and a half really trying to bring all of our program together up," Bolen said. "Tons of people to thank. My dad, everybody at Strange Oval, so many people make this possible. But like I said, all of my guys, it's a big deal. We've worked hard to get the car to this level to be able to have something like that. It means a lot."

It meant a lot to Bolen, and if Saturday night's performance was any indication, Bolen and the No. 2 team will be much more present in victory lane in the very near future.

Someone else who will find victory lane more in the future is without a doubt Finch, the 19-year-old runner-up finisher on Saturday night.

After climbing from his car, and taking a breather on the pit road wall, a winded Finch said while he wishes he could have won the race, that the finish netted him a great points day.

"Yeah, that was not the way I wanted it to go for sure," a dejected Finch said. "I guess a decent points day, I guess. But just didn't have what we needed at the end to be able to get it done."

The second-place finish on Saturday night is the Florida native's fourth consecutive top-five finish to start the Show Me the Money Series season, and aside from a fourth-place result in the second race of the year, Finch has finished second or better in every race this season.

While Finch wasn't happy about finishing runner-up, the fact that he was running at all was nothing short of a miracle. He and his team suffered from mechanical issues on Friday, which led to Finch having very limited time on track.

"It sucks, but we didn't get much practice yesterday with the trouble we had. It's not too bad, just gotta come back to the drawing board and try to get a little bit better," Finch said. "I feel like if we keep running up front, we'll just keep knocking a few off."

Finch credited his Ronnie Sanders Racing team for getting the car fixed up to give him a chance at pulling an upset win over the dominant Bolen on Saturday night.

Zack Dixon finished the race in third, and he came home ahead of Clint King, and Jim Wall, who narrowly snagged the fifth position in a drag race with Augie Grill on the final lap of the race.

The next race for the Show Me The Money Pro Late Model Series at Montgomery Motor Speedway will be the Saturday of Speed 125, which is slated for Saturday, July 27th.

With his win, Bolen joined Finch, Casey Roderick, and Stephen Nasse as drivers that have visited victory lane in the Show Me The Money Pro Late Model Series through the opening four races of the season.

Photo Credit: Reid Scott

Show Me The Money Pro Late Model Series Disturbing The Peace 100 Results