Another long day yesterday which ended at 1:00AM this morning with six cars left in the second of two WFC Gambler’s Races, after crowning Andrew Adkins with the win in Saturday’s WFC main event. Interestingly enough, Adkins had driven his car all the way from Delphos, Ohio to race in one of the biggest footbrake events in the country. The Day Last schedule called for completing yesterday’s Gambler’s Race and then followed by the third of three $10K WFC main events.
Jordan Wilhelm, Cam Murray, Chris Plott, Lexi Pollard, Francis Reynolds and Kaleb Cordill had to wait out the night for their chance at a $5,000 payday awaiting the winner of the Gambler’s Race. When the smoke cleared in the final, it was Wilhem’s dead-on the dial with a “2” that sealed the deal and the win for him against Plott.
Day Last is always sort of anticlimactic regardless of the event. New entries come in, but many more decide they’ve had enough and leave. If a racer hasn’t done well up to that point, they’re more apt to call it a week and start the drive home. Even so, Day Last here still was above last year’s record with 495 entries making the first round call.
Round eight and there remained six left. Shawn Pitts, who had two cars left the previous round, losing one of them; Adam Davis; Matt Obertanec; Saturday’s winner Andrew Adkins; Austin Alvey; and Edmond Ellison.
Quarterfinals, Davis and Adkins faced off with identical RT but it was Davis closer to his dial for the win. Obertanec then turned on the red-light by -0.001 to advance Pitts. And finally Alvey used a 0.009 RT to turn back Ellison and give him the odd car bye run to the final in the semis.
Semifinals and a better RT by Pitts was all it took to dispatch Davis and set up the final; Shawn Pitts against Austin Alvey, Ohio versus Kentucky, with maybe some déjà vu in Pitts’s corner as every winner up to now has been from Ohio.
The Ohio luck may have run out as Pitts turned on the red-light to reward another WFC rookie in Austin Alvey the win.
And with that, the 14th edition of the BTE World Footbrake Challenge was complete. It took long days and nights but every race was completed.
“We had some really great weather and a record breaking amount of entries,” said co-promoter Jared Pennington. “With only a minor amount of hiccups, along with cooperation and understanding of each of the racers, we were able to complete the entire event, giving each attendee the races we said we would. On behalf of myself and my partner Steve Stites, we can’t thank enough everyone who attended. And our entire Coalburg Racing Promotions staff and the staff at Bristol Dragway, without any of them, none of it would have been possible.
“Our sights are now set on Labor Day weekend when we’ll be back here for the BTE Labor Day $100K,” Pennington added. “It’s there where one lucky footbrake driver will walk away with an unheard of $100,000, the most money ever paid to a footbrake driver.”
This story was originally published on July 6, 2020. 
