SARVER, Pa. — Billy Moyer didn’t take long to get back on track.
After seeing his three-race World of Outlaws Late Model Series winning streak snapped four days earlier, the short-track legend from Batesville, Ark., roared back into the tour’s limelight with a convincing victory in the 50-lap Showdown in Sarvertown at Lernerville Speedway April 15.
The 50-year-old Moyer, who started third, overtook pole-sitter Shane Clanton for the lead on lap four and never looked back. He raced virtually unchallenged to his fourth victory in six WoO LMS events this season, erasing memories of his rare loss on April 11 at Virginia Motor Speedway.
“We all know that you can’t win them all,” said Moyer, thinking back to his 17th-place VMS run that was dulled by a blown left-rear tire as he battled for the lead. “We had a tire problem (at Virginia Motor Speedway), but I don’t know if I’d have beat (eventual winner Jeremy Miller) anyway because he did a heckuva job.
“We just chalked it up as one of those nights, then went back to work and tweaked on the car a little more before coming here. We just keep making some small changes, playing with the whole chassis part of it, and keep getting it a little bit better.
“I think for the condition here tonight,” he added, “it felt pretty good.”
There’s no doubt that Moyer’s Banner Valley Hauling-sponsored Victory Circle M1 Chassis looked good on the four-tenths-mile oval, which opened its 2008 season with the mid-week WoO LMS event. He pulled away following restarts on laps 21, 33 and 34 and handled late-race lapped traffic with ease en route to a victory margin of 1.663 seconds over Clanton, whose runner-up finish in the RSD Enterprises Rocket was his season-best on the WoO LMS.
Chub Frank marched forward from the 10th starting spot to place third, while defending series champion Steve Francis and Rick Eckert rounded out the top five.
Moyer pocketed $10,150 for the victory, his 10th overall of the season.
The finish:
Billy Moyer, Shane Clanton, Chub Frank, Steve Francis, Rick Eckert, Darrell Lanigan, Josh Richards, Brian Shirley, Mike Balzano, Jeep Van Wormer, Vic Coffey, Clint Smith, Dave Hess, Jr., Mike Knight, Matt Lux, Shannon Babb, John Blankenship, Doug Horton, Gary Lyle, Danny Johnson, Alex Ferree, Tim Fuller, David Scott, Joe Isabell, Davey Johnson, Billy Decker.