As the old saying goes, practice does make perfect. For Brandon Johnson, his practice session at the Rockingham Speedway paid off for him.

Johnson pulled away from the rest of the field over the last 50 laps of the ASA Late Model Series portion of the Cheerwine Cherry Bomb Saturday afternoon at “The Rock.”

Despite cruising into Victory Lane, Johnson battled his problems during the first half of the race.

“We were conserving our tires during the first 50,” Johnson said. “We were battling A.J. (Frank) and we were overheating bad, so I had to back off. Once we got into the clean air, it really helped us out a lot.”

During the first half of the race, Johnson and Frank had separated themselves from the rest of the field and appeared to have the best cars.

Frank managed to hold off Johnson for the lead at the halfway point, when a mandatory pit stop after lap 50, brought the drivers down pit road.

After the restart, Frank developed engine problems and began to slide back into the pack before a caution allowed him to have his crew fix the problem. But for Frank it was too late to battle Johnson for the lead.

Even though he was unable to take the lead from Frank, Johnson felt he had enough car to eventually push his car into the lead.

“I think I could have made the pass,” the Longwood, Fla. resident said. “We were concerned about conserving the tires, but in the last 50 laps, we really didn’t do too much different.”

Nearly a month ago, Johnson and him team brought his car to “The Rock” for a test session and posted the quickest time then.

Before Friday’s practice and qualifying session, Johnson said he believed the practice session was beneficial in helping him and his team prepare the car for race.

According to Johnson the victory was a shot in the arm for his team.

“This was huge,” Johnson said. “We have struggled here lately, we haven’t run bad, just not consistently.”

Final results for Cheerwine Cherry Bomb 200 ASA Late Model

1. Brandon Johnson

2. Brian Campbell

3. Dillion Olliver

4. Jack Smith

5. Brent Downey

6. Peter Cozzolino

7. Chris Eggleston

8. A.J. Frank

9. Brian Blum

10. Josh Hamner

11. Hal Martin

12. Gene Kirila

13. Rebecca Kasten

14. Tommy Joe Martins

15. Jerick Johnson

16. Mason Mitchell

17. Billy Crane

18. Drew Brannon

19. Stephen Leicht

20. Wes Burton

21. Troy Smith

22. Kyle Sirizzotti

While Johnson was pulling away from his competition in one half of the Cheerwine Cherry Bomb 200, Brett Hudson was using all of his skills to hold off his competition.

Hudson, the pole sitter for the Frank Kimmel Street Stock half of the Cherry Bomb 200, held off several charges from Tony Conway to grab the checkered flag.

“I normally don’t like lapped cars, but they helped me today,” Hudson, from Owensboro, Ky., said. “I knew he (Conway) was fast enough to catch up to me, but I didn’t think he had enough to pass me.”

Conway agreed with Hudson about being able to pass him for the lead.

“We didn’t have anything for him power wise, but we were handling a little better than him,” Conway said. “He’d pull away a little bit from us on the straightaways. He was actually pulling me in the draft, but out of the draft I couldn’t do anything with him.

“About the only chance we had was what we did using the traffic to get beside and maybe get around, but it didn’t work out.”

Even Hudson was surprised Conway wasn’t able to use the draft to slingshot around him.

“I figured the draft would work more here,” Hudson said. “I thought it was going to be more like the Kentucky Speedway where we were able to draft more. It’s really hard to pass here.”

Final results for the Cheerwine Cherry Bomb 200 Frank Kimmel Street Stock

1. Brett Hudson

2. Tony Conway

3. Clint Watkins

4. Joe Williamson

5. Doug Weiss

6. Roger Williams

7. Chad Hall

8. Rick Erwin

9. Bill Ammons

10. Mike Velotta

11. Allen Redmon

12. Wally Leatherwood

13. Jeff Caudell

14. Scott Caudell

15. Richard Patino

16. Steve Hadley

17. Gary Davis

18. Sean Calway

19. Wayne Locklair

20. Carl Willard

21. Boo Hickman

22. John Guker

23. Bobby East

24. Chris Flowers

25. Peter Hernandez

26. Jason Callebs

27. Tyler Speer

28. Joe Holp

29. Tony Tumas

30. Kyle Hadley

31. Cliff Gaumond

32. Frank Kapfhammer

33. Bill Ashton

34. Jason Garven

35. Tim Treadwel

36. Marty Bean

37. Scott Joplin

38. Jason Leatherwood