(Photo by Brant Thurmond/Double T Media)
The Touring Outlaw Modified Series (TOMS) was back in action Saturday evening at Abilene Speedway, in Abilene, Texas.
Saturday’s race was the first time in two years that the TOMS had been to the track as the 2024 race being cancelled a year ago.
Fred Wojtek (Blackwell, Texas) won both trips the series made to Abilene Speedway in 2023 with wins coming on April 22 and Aug. 5.
Saturday’s race was also a first for the TOMS as Jake Huckaby became the first driver in 10 feature races to repeat as a TOMS feature winner.
(Photo by Brant Thurmond/Double T Media)
He was also the first back-to-back winner since Jack Sartain (Royse City, Texas) won back-to-back TOMS feature races at Hunt County Raceway on Sept. 7 and Oct. 9 during the 2024 season.
The young Texarkana, Texas native picked up his first career TOMS feature win a week prior at Heart O’ Texas Speedway on July 11.
With a field of some of the most talented modified drivers in the southern United States, Huckaby understood the significance of the achievement of winning back-to-back races while standing in victory lane Saturday evening in Abilene.
“Yeah, that means a lot,” he said. “You know, there’s a stout field of competitors that run up and down the road. Kudos to Dean (Abbey). He raced me clean, and it was good right there at the end.”
“It’s pretty cool to win my second ever feature back-to-back…All glory to God for sure.”
Jake Huckaby
Huckaby said he had limited experience at HOT Speedway, and it was his first trip to Abilene Speedway, and he will have both wins stored as a memory for years to come.
“It’s pretty cool to win my second ever feature back-to-back, but I’ll never forget it for sure,” Huckaby said. “It was two tracks I really don’t race at a lot, and I come out here and was able to get it done again. So, it’s awesome and all glory to God for sure.”
With the TOMS not making as many trips to Abilene as some of the other tracks on the schedule, several drivers notepads on possible setups may have been stretch thin.
“I started watching Youtube videos of some in-car cams of the guys that run around here locally and just tried to get a feel for the track,” he said of his prep leading up to Saturday’s race. “First time here and it’s a cool track man. It was really racy there in the feature and the track prep was awesome, but yeah, this is real. This is cool.”
Huckaby credited his mom and dad and his faith for the recent success.
“I had a lot of down at the beginning of the season and then we turned it around and I just got to keep the faith in it,” he said. “I want to thank my mom and dad for sure. You know, this is just a blessing to be able to get to do any of this and it all came from God really.”
A total of 27 modifieds checked in for Saturday’s race in Abilene.
Wesley Veal (Princeton, Texas) started outside of Huckaby on the front row and led the opening lap, before Huckaby was able to power back and take the lead on lap 2.
The caution flag would wave as Dakoka Bechler (Sackets Harbor, New York) spun in the middle of turns three and four.
Two more laps were completed before the next caution came on lap four as Rickey Wilkerson (Gunter, Texas) came to a stop exiting turn two.
The field completed 10 more laps with Huckaby leading, but the caution flag waved again as Jaxon McGaha (Abilene, Texas) spun in the middle of turns three and four.
With 11 laps remaining, Huckaby led the next five laps before Abbey was able to roll the bottom line on both ends of the track and took the lead with six laps remaining.
Abbey continued to use the bottom groove as Huckaby worked the high side of the track and retook the lead with three laps remaining.
Huckaby would hold on to the lead for the remaining three laps with Abbey finishing in the runner-up spot and Veal rounding out the podium finishers in third place.
TOMS points leader Shane Hartline (Ivanhoe, Texas) got himself another top five finish by finishing in fourth place. John Neal Reid (Loving, New Mexico) rounded out the top five in fifth place.
Huckaby recorded the race’s fastest lap at 17.272 seconds (unofficially) coming on lap two according to My Race Pass timing.
Josh McGaha (Abilene, Texas) was the hard charger of the race moving up 13 positions from 23rd to 10th.
Abbey moved up seven spots from his ninth place starting position. Hartline, Shane Priddy (Merkel, Texas) and J.D Davis (Merkel, Texas) each moved up four positions for finishes of fourth, 13th and 18th, respectively.
B Feature 1 winner- Sam Cox (Flower Mound, Texas)
Heat 1 winner- Steven Ashcraft (Forney, Texas)
Heat 2 winner-John Neal Reid (Loving, New Mexico)
Heat 3 winner-Jake Huckaby (Texarkana, Texas)
Full results for the event can be found at the following link-
https://www.myracepass.com/events/545616/media-results
Current Points Standings-
(Top 10)
- Shane Hartline- 866
- Dean Abbey- 882-4
- Jason Ingalls- 844-42
- Jake Huckaby- 760-126
- Chase Hatton- 700-186
- Wesley Veal- 693-193
- Troy Taylor- 669-217
- Sam Cox- 651-235
- Ryan Veal- 627-259
- John Smelley- 540-346
The next TOMS event will be at Southern Oklahoma Speedway, Saturday, Aug. 2, in Ardmore, Oklahoma.
As always, all the action of the TOMS race at SOS will be streamed on Raceon.com.
