WHITE CITY, Ore. (Aug. 16, 2024) – It didn’t matter where Bricen James ran Friday night, he was fast.
The Albany ace became a double winner at Southern Oregon Speedway’s Dwayne Melvin Clash/Bruce Rayburn Classic show, taking the $2,000 Silver Bullet I-5 Late Model Series victory and then beating Nick Trenchard to the stripe by six hundredths of a second for the $5,500 Friesen Performance IMCA Modified top prize.
The Modified 40-lapper ran caution-free and the frontrunners ran in traffic more than half that distance. Also the Rayburn winner in 2022, James matched his career-best payday with his 10th victory in the division this season.
“This was one of the best race tracks we’ve been on all year. It was fast on the bottom and it was fast on the top and slick all the way between,” said James, who worked his way to the front from eighth starting. “It seemed like the race went really quick.”
He picked off a couple cars right at the start, then ran with Grey Ferrando for much of the race before getting to second and setting his sights on Trenchard, paring the leader’s four-plus car length lead.
“I just slowly started reeling him in. It was kind of cat and mouse. He’d change lanes and I’d change lanes,” James said. “We had a pretty good race, really.”
Trenchard and James ran virtually side-by-side late in the race and caught up to two cars battling for position coming to the white flag.
Trenchard picked the bottom line, James the higher side of the oval.
“They kind of bottle necked in front of him and it was just enough for me to squeak between all of them,” he explained. “That was pretty much the deciding factor.”
Trenchard’s Hail Mary at the finish came up just short. Ian Whisler, Grey Ferrando and Collen Winebarger completed the top five.
“This was super cool. We try to run this race with them every year,” said James, the winner in just his third start in Dustin Comer’s 2023 SDMF Chassis and already Fast Shafts All-Star Invitational qualifying eligible. “This is a race they put on that we try to be at every time. It’s definitely the marquee event they put on for IMCA Modifieds and it’s definitely exciting to get a second one.”
What had been scheduled as a two-day show was condensed to one night because of a less than favorable weather forecast for Saturday. Jorddon Braaten also earned $3,069 and his career 100th Friesen Performance IMCA Northern SportMod feature win during the evening Friday.
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