By Matthew Thomerson/TheFourthTurn.com

TIMMONSVILLE, SC – Keelan Harvick was victorious Saturday, winning the 11th annual Icebreaker at Florence Motor Speedway.

Harvick, who has progressed in Late Model Stocks over the last year, found himself in a strengthened field with many veterans. After starting third, Harvick kept pace and stayed inside the top-three for the duration of the event. After a caution with 45 to go, Harvick pounced at the opportunity and grabbed the lead from Jake Bollman on the restart, setting sail the rest of the way to add another big-time Late Model win to his resume.

“It’s really cool you know, just I know I keep saying this but thanks to all my guys.” Harvick said. “We’ve had a lot of issues this weekend but you know it’s been a really fun experience, it’s just really cool to do it with this group of guys.” 

The restart seemed to haven taken a good day and made it a winning day for Harvick. 

“Yeah I just, I knew if I got by him it’d be a lot easier in clean air just it’d get really tight when I was behind Jake (Bollman) but once I knew I had a lot better feeling once I got by him,” Harvick said.

Finishing second was the defending race winner, Matt Cox. No stranger to battling for wins at Florence, Cox was once again in a position to strike late after hanging around inside the top-five through much of the event. He followed Harvick closely in the final few dozen laps, but it wasn’t enough to win back-to-back.

“We were a little aero tight there,” Cox said. “We would get to him (Harvick) and lose the air off the nose, and you know, I got there to him, and I thought we were going to be pretty decent with 15 to 20 to go and kept getting tight, just build tight, tight there in the last 15 laps, and it got me off and I just couldn’t keep pace with him the last 10 laps or so.”

Finishing third was Virginia’s Lee Pulliam, who is a stout veteran when it comes to tire management races. After starting outside the top-five, Pulliam methodically made his way into contention. With the help of the restart, he was able to battle until the very end to grab third. 

“I think everything made a difference there.” Pulliam stated. “I didn’t qualify good and I was stuck there around 14th place and had to just claw through the field to get there. Just a hard race, you know, not easy running this series and just a lot of rubbing, a lot of beating and banging and just gave it everything we had.” 

The race featured only one caution for an incident, after Mason Diaz spun.

Jake Bollman led the most laps with a dominant showing but lost the lead for good on the final restart.  

Bollman and Carson Brown rounded out the top-five.

Brandon Johnson, who typically runs Mini Stocks won the Super Truck feature in his second start. 

Jason Turner won the Crown Vic feature after starting in the back of the field.

Up next at Florence Motor Speedway is Opening Night on Saturday, Feb. 28. The SMART Modified Tour returns for the second straight year of the Zach Brewer Memorial. 

Photo Credit: Matthew Thomerson/TheFourthTurn.com