Colin Allman Breaks Through for First UARA National Win in Bigley Memorial Tune-Up

Colin Allman earned his first UARA National Super Late Model victory on Saturday night, taking the win in the Bigley Memorial Tune-Up 125 at the Freedom Factory.

Allman took the lead from Michael Hinde and led the rest of the way, holding off Hinde and Kendrick Kreyer in the closing laps for a milestone win in the driver's career.

A former college baseball player, Allman and his family team have long punched above their weight on the national Super Late Model stage. On Saturday night, Allman landed the knockout punch for his first UARA National win.

"It's huge, man," said Allman in victory lane. "We've been wanting one for a long time. We've been so close the past year. We've had really good race cars ever since we got hooked up with Toby [Nuttleman] and Ty [Majeski]. This thing was on rails tonight."

Passing proved challenging at times on the fast half-mile in Bradenton, Florida, especially with an evenly-matched field. Allman set fast time in qualifying, but started eighth following the invert. It took patience to work his way through the field in the 125-lap contest.

"It was tough, so tough to pass," said Allman. "I kind of burned the right-rear up in the first half and kind of made up my mind when I got to fifth, I was just going to hang out and hope for the best. Try to pick them off on restarts if we get any, because it's so hard to pass here.

"It's just so hard to pass here, and I didn't want to burn it up too early. We were a little too tight to pick them off in the beginning, so I had to change my game plan and just take what the car gave me. Everything worked out. There were some good cars that fell out, but that's part of it."

Of course, the Bigley Memorial Tune-Up sets the stage for November's Bill Bigley, Sr. Memorial 128, a race dominated by Majeski last year. Allman believes there is still work to be done if he hopes to upset Majeski in this fall's edition of the big money UARA National event.

"The car wasn't perfect. We've still got a lot of work to do to beat that 91 in November, for sure."

The big payday comes at a good time for Allman, as he mentioned in his post-race interview that he and his fiancé recently purchased a new home. He joked that if that's what it took to win more races, he might still be on the lookout for new houses.

"My fiancé, me and her just bought a house and we moved in a week ago. First race we're in a new house, we win. Guess we've got to buy another one?"

Kendrick Kreyer finished second, dodging some late-race chaos to score the runner-up result. After a disappointing result in the UARA opener, Kreyer backed up a sixth-place finish in the Rattler 250 at South Alabama Speedway with Saturday's result.

"We had some bad luck the last couple of races," said Kreyer. "We finally got the monkey off our back. Nice job, Nick Neri, on P3, nice job to Colin on the dub. It's going to be a wild season. This banana car, that's what we call it, it's been good to me.

"We started further back, like 12th, but stayed out of trouble. The outside on the restarts worked pretty well for me. I was stuck out there and thought, oh, no, I'm gonna get dropped back like three spots here. It ended up being really good out there, and a really, really good short-run car. Long-run was really good, but Colin just had a better long-run car. I can't ask for any better than this.

Neri rounded out the podium, also relying on patience to work his way through the field.

"It was good starting out the race. I thought we were gonna be pretty good on the long run," said Neri. "Really, I was just saving for the first 75 laps or so, waiting for mine to get a little bit better and everyone else to start falling off a little bit. It just never happened.

"Luckily, you know, just survived. Every time we'd lose a couple of spots, a couple of cars would break or whatever and we'd get them back. Really, just kind of survived tonight."

Michael Hinde took the lead for the first time on lap eight, and led the majority of the Tune-Up 125. However, he lost the lead to Allman on lap 101 and was involved in an incident with Cody Stickler while battling for second shortly thereafter.

Hinde rebounded from that incident to finish fourth, with Bryton Horner rounding out the top five.

The Bill Bigley, Sr. Memorial 128 is scheduled for November 28-29 at the Freedom Factory. That event also serves as the season finale for the UARA National series.

The next stop for the UARA National Super Late Models is Berlin Raceway for the Money in the Bank 150 presented by Baker Auto Group. That event is scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday, June 3-4.

-Photo credit: Will Bellamy

Bigley Memorial Tune-Up 125 Unofficial Results