If the word “Déjà vu” had a picture attached to it, Timmy Hogan would be the face of the definition.
On Friday night, the Lake Helen, FL driver claimed his second consecutive 3/4 Modified Feature win at the Germfree Southern Sprint Car Shootout in a similar lucky break to Thursday night’s finish.
Hogan and Deland, FL’s Ethyn Hwan led the field to the green, with Hogan quickly jumping out to the lead.
Pierson, FL’s Colton Lane joined in the mix of the two drivers, using the bottom lane to claim the lead in the Feature.
While Lane’s car began to spread away from the pack, Hogan and Hwan kept pedaling to try and catch the 13-year-old speedster.
Cautions gave Hogan and Hwan a chance at snagging the lead, along with other 3/4 Modified favorites like Lake Helen, FL’s Steven Powers, and Orange City, FL’s Rusty Young.
Lane got a slow restart with three laps to go, giving Hogan a chance to swoop down the bottom of the track to snag the lead from the #26L.
On the last lap, Lane and Hwan collided on the backstretch while trying to catch Hogan, going back-to-back in Feature wins with the 3/4 Modifieds.
“Same situation as last night,” Hogan said. “(Lane) had the faster car and the one to beat because I couldn’t catch him. He had a little more bite than I did. I was able to hang onto him, I didn’t give up, I just kept pace and waited for a mistake to be made. We had a couple of cautions and he kept getting me good on the restarts. I don’t know what happened to him, so I just drove around and beat him to the corner. I was able to keep it on the bottom the last two laps and brought it back into victory lane.”
His son, Steven Powers, came home to finish second place after avoiding the last-lap incident and making a huge comeback in the Feature after spinning out to cause the first caution.
“I had trouble to start,” Powers said. “It wasn’t good in the Heat, talked to my dad and we got it fixed. It was a little loose up trying to figure out how to fix it. I flat-footed it, ended up looping it in turn four. I knew I didn’t hit the wall hard, but it was more damage than I thought. We’ll be alright though. I had to play it smart because I knew (the field) was a little bit slower. I picked them off on the high side, trying to get by clean. I got up to third and I tried to be the bologna in the sandwich and they closed the door. I had to let off to get by the last lap wreck, I saw the opening, and I just drove.”
Hwan recovered to finish third at the finish, with a car he believes he’s got dialed in.
“The race was fun,” Hwan said. “We finally got this car dialed in at (Battle in Barberville) and we had engine problems and I think we’ve got that figured out. The car was way too tight on the bottom and it could roll around the top well.”
Young came home to finish fourth, and Pierson, FL’s Dustin Childers wrapped up the night’s top five finishers.
UP NEXT: The 3/4 Modifieds join the USCS Sprint Cars for the finale of the Germfree Southern Sprint Car Shootout, Jan. 26-27. For tickets, CLICK HERE.
If you can’t make it to the track, watch every lap live on DIRTVision – available either online or through the DIRTVision App.