A Timely Blackout: Deal wins in surprise visit with Tompkins’ Factory Stock

In what was supposed to be a mentor/crew chief role for young and upcoming driver Kanden Tompkins, Deal was asked to drive his #28 Factory Stock for a night. Deal molded his career with street stocks, so experience comes to fruition in this class. The issue, Deal hasn’t competitively driven a street stock since 2013. But this night proved it was no issue at all.

Deal started in the tail of the heat race. And had no issues aside making minimal contact with Gary Walker on the first lap. Deal was able to drive his normal “catfish” line around the bottom to score the victory. In the feature (the last race of the night at the Brownstown Bullring), Deal led the first couple of laps. However, Terry “Fatman” McCann found his way around the topside and took the lead away. A caution came out with Deal being scored behind McCann. A lap later off of the restart, Deal barely edged out McCann to take the lead back before a very timely caution came out. During the yellow flag, half of the racetrack’s lights went out. After about twenty minutes, the track officials decided to call it a night with the race being over halfway over. Deal was declared the winner and was greeted by an elated Eric Tompkins (Kanden’s father).