A total of fourteen Southern Sportsman series cars were on hand but no one had anything for Patrick Thomas in qualifying as his lap of 14.893 seconds was well ahead of second quick Bart Weatherford's 15.262 effort.

Just as Cody Blair had to do in the FMSC race, Thomas would be forced to start eleventh as well since he was the most recent winner in the Series and it would prove to be make this race very exciting.
After two aborted tries, the field finally took the green with pole sitter Mark Peterson the early pace setter. Bart Weatherford was on the charge and he grabbed the lead and set sail from the rest of the field.

Meanwhile, as the race ran under green, Thomas was methodically picking off cars one by one, headed to the front. He eventually caught and passed Weatherford for the top spot all without benefit of a caution flag. In fact, it looked like the race may run the entire 50 lap distance without a yellow until Jeff Padilla looped his mount in turn four with six laps to go.

Thomas was never headed in his run to the checker giving the Oviedo driver back to back SSS wins in his Specialty Construction sponsored Chevrolet.

Weatherford snared the runner-up spot with early leader Peterson having one of his best ever runs coming home third. Fourth went to Mike Soukup, the last car on the lead lap as fifth place finisher Tom Raider was a lap down at the finish. Rounding out the finishers were Andy Nicholls, Richard Elkins, Jr., Ron McCreary, Duane Best, Johnathan Soukup, Padilla, Earl Beckner, Jimmie Best and Roger Welch.



OFFICIAL RESULTS
SOUTHERN SPORTSMAN 50
ORLANDO SPEEDWORLD - APRIL 11, 2008

1. #25 Patrick Thomas
2. #1 Bart Weatherford
3. #73 Mark Peterson
4. #45 Mike Soukup
5. #7 Tom Raiser
6. #66 Andy Nicholls
7. #55 Richard Elkins, Jr.
8. #00 Ron McCreary
9. #3 Duane Best
10. #45A Adam Soukup
11. #21 Jeff Padilla
12. #31 Earl Beckner
13. #67 Jimmie Best
14. #98 Roger Welch