Josh Roberts
With just over 25% (26.6) of the 2024 Rack Race season in the rearview mirror (four of the series’ 15 events), Josh Roberts is the clear favorite to win the series’ second MVP award this year. It should be noted that while Roberts has won all four of the 2024 Rack Race’s events at this point, including this past weekend’s (March 2-3), he won six last year and did not win the inaugural season’s MVP award.
That $1,000 prize went to Mike Wise, with Todd Blackwell collecting the 2nd place prize of $500. Both had competed in all 15 events of the inaugural season (which Roberts had not), allowing lower points-per-event to accumulate beyond Roberts’ total at the end of the year. Assigned points are related to the total number of entrants, with the winner receiving points equal to the number of entrants and others receiving one point less at each succeeding finish, to include the same number of points for ties (5/8, 9/12, etc.) down through the entire field. Wise and Blackwell have competed in each of the four events of the 2024 season. This, demonstrating an adage, attributed to Woody Allen, that “90% of life is just showing up.”
Also “showing up” and grabbing a secondary spotlight to Roberts’ victory at this past weekend’s $1,000-added event that drew 43 entrants to Rack & Grill II on the outskirts of Augusta, GA, was former junior competitor Landon Hollingsworth, who sent a few shock waves rippling into the ‘crowd’ by defeating Roberts 6-4 in the second round of play. From a potential six-round trip to the finals, Hollingsworth transformed Roberts’ journey into nine, loss-side matches, plus two in a double-elimination final. This apparently didn’t sit well with Roberts, who earned a measure of satisfaction by double-dipping Hollingsworth in the finals.
With Roberts ‘safely’ at work on the loss side, Hollingsworth advanced to shut out Jim Jennings and draw Larry Davis in one of the winners’ side semifinals. From the opposite end of the bracket, Ricky Baugham opened with three straight 6-3 wins over Keaton Crouch, Derrick Cobb and Calvin Le, before surviving a double-hill match versus Timmy Prince to pick up Richard Kilgore in the other winners’ side semifinal.
Hollingsworth got into the hot seat match with a 6-2 win over Davis and was joined by Baugham, who’d defeated Kilgore 6-4. Hollingsworth claimed the hot seat 6-3 and settled in for what turned out to be about a 45-minute wait (spilling into Sunday) for Roberts to complete his loss-side run.
That loss-side run for Roberts was not without its challenges. Though Roberts would win four of his seven loss-side matches by an aggregate score of 20-5, the remaining three would go double hill including two, back-to-back, against Billy Holmes and Timmy Prince. He chalked up loss-side wins #3 and #4 against Prince and Jeff Crawford 5-1 to pick up Davis, coming over from the winners’ side semifinal. Kilgore came over and drew James Mullins, who’d lost his winners’ side quarterfinal to Davis before eliminating Tracy Prescott, double hill, and shutting out Jim Jennings.
Mullins did what he could to bring about a quarterfinal rematch versus Davis by defeating Kilgore 5-3. Roberts, though, made short work of Davis, defeating him 5-1. Roberts defeated Mullins 5-3 in those quarterfinals.
Roberts found himself battling in his third (and last) double-hill match in the semifinals versus Baugham. He prevailed, advancing to the double-elimination finals.
Roberts took the opening set 6-3, tying his match score versus Hollingsworth at one apiece. In a reduced-race to 5, he took the second set 5-3 to claim his fourth straight 2024 Rack Race title.
Tour director Michael Newsome thanked his Rack & Grill II staff for their assistance, along with sponsors Predator, Salazar, Filta Environmental Kitchen Solutions, JTs Automotive Group, Pepsi, CSRA Machine Fab, DigitalPool, NationalBilliardAcademy.com and Iwan Simonis Cloth.
The next stop on the 2024 Rack Race series (#5), scheduled for the weekend of March 16-17, will be hosted by Rack & Grill III in Aiken, SC. In addition to the Rack Race event, it will include a concurrently-run, March Madness Weekend, Racks Carolina Classic Mini.
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