Mardy Lindley survived a wild race at Ace Speedway last Saturday night to claim victory in the Hooters Pro Cup Series event. The race took a bizarre twist on lap 20 in the 250-lap event when four of the top five cars were swept up in a crash caused by oil on the racetrack.

Polesitter Shane Huffman and Stacy Puryear were running one-two but found themselves behind the wall. Lindley drove through the melee only to lose the lead late in the event to three-time series champion Bobby Gill.

A late caution bunched up the field, and coming to the white flag Lindley laid the bumper to Gill sending him up the banking to take the lead. On the final lap defending series champion Jason Sarvis made contact with Gill while racing for second, sending Gill’s Ford into the turn three wall, relegating him to a 12th- place finish.

"I only made it through that mess on lap 20 by the grace of God, we were real lucky," Lindley said after the race.

"I knew we had a chance to get by Gill there at the end because had done it earlier. His car needed five laps before it really came in, but ours was good right away, that caution really helped us. I just took care of the car until the end of the race because I knew that’s when we were going to need it."

Benny Gordon made a sensational debut in the series with a second place showing. Despite starting 27th, Gordon gained track position by stopping before the leaders and passing them while they pitted under caution.

"Short pitting gave me good track position but the tires didn’t give away too much to the cars that pitted later. I was just trying to be patient and it paid off tonight," Gordon said.

Rounding out the top five were Jason Sarvis, Toby Porter and Joe Gaita.

The hard luck story of the night goes to rookie Jason York. York suffered spins in the early and middle stages of the race but found himself in fifth place with 15 laps to go before hitting the wall.

"The car handled great all night, we just had no luck, "the Reidsville, N.C., driver said. " We got caught up in a few spins early and then with about 50 laps to go the breaks started going soft and then they just went to the floor and I got into the wall."

York finished 14th.

Ace Speedway is located in Altamahaw, a 10-minute drive from Elon’s campus. The track features weekly Friday night racing for $12 with up to five divisions in action.