Seth Christensen Kicks Off Road to Snowflake 100 With Win in Allen Turner Opener

More than a year after his breakthrough win in the 2023 Alabama 200, Seth Christensen returned to victory lane on Friday night. Christensen took the checkered flag in the kickoff to the Allen Turner Pro Late Model Series at Five Flags Speedway, marking the first step on the road to the Allen Turner Snowflake 100.

Christensen took the lead on lap 44, then held off Augie Grill on a lap 54 restart before pulling away to a three-second victory.

“I’m just so happy,” said Christensen in victory lane. “These guys just worked their butts off. It’s been a long time coming for our second win. Just mistake after mistake, just a learning experience until now, it seems like. Hopefully, this is one of many.

“It starts at the shop. These guys put 110 percent in, day in and day out. Man, what a race.”

Grill felt he was not far off Christensen’s pace, but the long green flag run to end the 100-lapper made it difficult.

“They beat us pretty bad in qualifying, so I knew they’d be good in the race,” said Grill. “We just needed a little bit. It looked way bad at the end because we went green so long. He wasn’t that much better than we were, we just need that much. That much is sometimes hard to find.

“We’ll take a second. It’s better than we’ve run down here in a while, so we’ll take the second, go home and try to get better.”

2023 Allen Turner Pro Late Model Series champion John Bolen finished third in the race to start his title defense. Bolen rallied from a 10th-place qualifying effort for the podium finish.

“Starting in 10th put us in a hole there,” said Bolen. “We had a good long run car. We just made our way through there, one by one. We were a little free off and run up on a couple of those guys that would park it in the center. I didn’t want to lean on them too hard, tried to go up there without wrecking anything.”

“The race went so green by being patient with some of them guys that let those two get so far gone. We were faster at the end, we were just too far behind.”

In other feature racing action, Carter Taylor scored the win ahead of Logan Boyett and Cameron Henderson in the Faith Chapel Outlaws. The Dock of Pensacola Beach Sportsman feature came down to a photo finish between brothers, as Parker McDonald took the win by 0.069 seconds ahead of Daryl McDonald, III. Okie Mason took the lead with two laps to go in the Story & Bleich Crown Stocks feature to end the night with a win.

-Photo credit: Reid Scott, Liberty Racing Review

ALLEN TURNER PRO LATE MODEL SERIES UNOFFICIAL RESULTS - APRIL 5, 2024