(Photo Courtesy of Mike Frieri /Photos by Mike)
The Touring Outlaw Modified Series (TOMS) was back in action Friday and Saturday, June 20-21, evening for two nights of racing.
The series originally was originally scheduled to race at Boothill Speedway on Friday, June 20, however the series posted on its Facebook page on June 13, that the race at Boothill was canceled and the series would be racing at Rocket Raceway Park instead.
Friday’s action at Rocket Raceway Park featured a caution-free A Feature race that eventually led to a first time series winner in Dean Abbey.
Abbey (Boyd, Texas) started the race on the outside of the front row, and after Jason Ingalls (Longview, Texas) led the opening lap, Abbey passed Ingalls on lap two for the race lead.
Abbey went on to lead the next 15 laps, and as the field caught lap traffic, Chase Allen (Midlothian, Texas) was able to pass Abbey exiting turn 2.
Allen led the next five laps and looked to set sail with the lead, but Abbey didn’t want to be denied as he battled back with Allen and made slight contact as the field crossed the stripe with five laps remaining.
Allen would lead one more lap before being forced to pull to the infield as he exited turn two after what appeared to be some kind of malfunction with his No. 49 car.
Abbey regained the lead and would pick up the win.
Abbey, who filled in as a guest commentator for the Race On broadcast during the B feature races, joked about his time in the pressbox during his post-race interview with the track announcer.
(Photo by Mike Frieri/Photos by Mike)
“Hey, maybe that’s the luck I needed,” Abbey said. “I got to sit up there for a minute and cool off and kind of watch the racing and look at the racetrack. It gave me a really good sense of where I wanted to be.”
As far as the race itself, Abbey said he was able to make an adjustment when Allen passed him for the lead and capitalized on a mistake later by Allen to help him win.
“I thought I gave it away for a minute when Chase (Allen) got by me and then I saw what he was doing,” he said. “The lapped traffic played into my favor a bit, but man, what a racecar we had. I knew I was giving up (time) down here (turn one and two). I was getting tight in those holes and then I’d be up there in the slick coming off. Then, I started searching and Chase made a mistake, and I was able to capitalize in lap traffic.”
Shane Hartline (Ivanhoe, Texas) finished in second place, while Ingalls was third, Jason Webb (McKinney, Texas) finished fourth and Chase Hatton (De Berry, Texas) improved five spots from his 10th place starting position for a top five finish.
Abbey led 19 of the 25 laps, while Allen led five laps and Jason Ingalls led one lap.
Chris Henigan (Marshall, Texas) was the hard charger of the race, moving up 10 positions from 17th to seventh.
Jason Hillard (Cache, Oklahoma) improved nine spots from 23rd to 14th and Jason Langford (Palestine, Texas) moved up six positions from 19th to 13th.
Allen had the fastest lap time with a time of 15.848 on lap five according to My Race Pass timing.
B Feature 1 winner- Richard Brown Jr (Gun Barrell, Texas)
B Feature 2 winner- Jake Huckaby (Texarkana, Texas)
Heat 1 winner- Jason Gamez
Heat 2 winner- Jason Webb
Heat 3 winner- Dean Abbey
Heat 4 winner- Sam Cox
Heat 5 winner- Billy Brierton
Full results can be found at the following link.
https://www.myracepass.com/events/563262/races
ARK-LA-TEX
It was an inaugural trip to the Ark-La-Tex Speedway Saturday evening, June 21, 2025, in Vivian, Louisiana, for the Touring Outlaw Modified Series.
Leading into the feature race, Chris Henigan was arguably the favorite to win the feature race after winning his heat race earlier in the night and being a regular at Ark-La-Tex Speedway and seeing a great deal of success.
Hennigan had five wins in the previous 10 trips he made to the track with the USRA Modifieds.
Unfortunately for Hennigan, his feature race did not go as he had hoped, as he had issues with his racecar before the drop of the green flag after being set to start on the pole of the feature.
Hennigan was able to make a few laps from the 24th starting position before pulling off the track.
Abbey moved up from his original second place starting position to the pole and from the drop of the green flag, set his sights on back-to-back TOMS wins.
Abbey led the first 10 laps of the feature race before colliding with the infield tractor tire exiting turn two. The mishap would send him back to 23rd.
Drake Findley (Bryant, Arkansas) inherited the race lead and led six laps before colliding with John Smelly (Longview, Texas) following a spin by Smelly in the middle of turns one and two.
Tanner Barnhart (North Little Rock, Arkansas) took over the lead with eight laps remaining and survived two more cautions (Lap 19 and 21).
Jason Webb (McKinney, Texas) took the lead with two laps remaining while exiting turn two and went on to become the sixth winner in six TOMS events.
“This track started to widen out there and just made for damn good racing,” Webb said standing in victory lane. “Before that last restart, I kind of got up there (turn three and four) and checked it out. It seemed like it had some grip. That was kind of the last choice and where I ended up.”
Barnhart finished second behind Webb, while Landon Rogers (Karnack, Texas) finished in third place; Hartline was fourth; and Abbey rounded out the top five after rebounding from his mishap earlier in the race.
Abbey led 10 laps. Findley led seven laps, while Barnhart led six laps and Webb led two laps.
Webb and Donnie Powers (Henderson, Texas) were the races’ hard chargers with both improving seven positions from their original starting spots. Webb started eighth and Powers started 15th and finished eighth.
Abbey had the fastest lap of the race with a lap time of 15.255 seconds on lap five, according to My Race Pass timing.
B Feature 1 winner- Sam Cox (Flower Mound, Texas
Heat 1 winner- Chris Hennigan
Heat 2 winner- Landon Rogers
Heat 3 winner- Drake Findley
Heat 4 winner- Dean Abbey
Full results can be found at the following link.
https://www.myracepass.com/events/557607/media-results
Current points Standings
(Top 10)
- Shane Ivanhoe- 563
- Dean Abbey- 527 -36
- Jason Ingalls- 512 – 51
- Chase Hatton- 449 -114
- Sam Cox- 413 -150
- Jake Huckaby- 404 -159
- Ryan Veal- 396 -167
- Troy Taylor- 368 -195
- Jason Webb – 363 -200
- Wesley Veal- 362 – 201
The next TOMS event will be held Saturday, July 5, at Southern Oklahoma Speedway. The series will have three additional races in July- Heart O’ Texas Speedway (July11), RPM Speedway (July 12) and Abilene Speedway (July 19).
As always, the racing action will be streamed on Race On if you can’t make it to the track.