Josh Roberts
Roberts and Le take home top cash prizes as Rack Race Player of the Year and runner-up
You couldn’t have asked for a better finale to the 2024 Rack Race season. Headlining this past weekend’s (August 16-18) season finale, from the get-go, was a potential matchup between Johnny Archer and Josh Roberts who’d battled in the Rack Race finals six times over the past two years. Roberts had won the first four of those meetings, until Stop #12 of the current season, when Archer came from the loss side to double-dip Roberts in the final. At Stop #13, it was Roberts who came from the loss side to challenge Archer, but Archer won the single-set final. Roberts did not compete in Stop #14, while Archer chalked up his third in a row.
The random draw of the $8,000-added season finale that drew 48 entrants to Rack & Grill III in Aiken, SC, put Archer and Roberts on opposite ends of the bracket, guaranteeing that if they were going to meet on the winners’ side of the bracket, it was going to happen in the battle for the hot seat. It didn’t, because after winning his opening match and then defeating his runner-up in the battle for Player of the Year honors, Calvin Le, Roberts’ trip to the hot seat match was diverted. He lost his next match 9-7 to Eddie Wahdan, who advanced to become Archer’s opponent in that winners’ side final.
From that point on, it was all about the antici. . . .pation.
There was very little doubt about who would win the Rack Race’s Player of the Year award, which added $1,000 (and a separate trophy) to whatever amount the winner would take home in the actual event ($500 and trophy for the runner-up). That was Josh Roberts and Calvin Le going into the event. They were separated by less than 100 points in the standings, but unless Roberts finished ‘out of the money’ and Le won the event, it was destined to (and did) end up that way. Roberts won and it was Le who finished ‘out of the money,’ with the runner-up $500 softening the blow of an uncharacteristically low finish in the season finale.
Adding a little spice to the already-tasty tournament menu with its potential for an Archer/Roberts battle (or two), were a number of Rack Race regulars, and a few occasional ‘visitors,’ who, if nothing else, let Roberts and Archer know that their path to victory and toward each other could get a little complicated at any point along the way. And it did, for Roberts especially, who along his loss-side path to the finals met up with BJ Ussery, Jr., Mike Davis, Jr., Tommy Kennedy, Barry Mashburn, and Kim Davenport before facing Eddie Wahdan a second time.
Archer’s path to the hot seat went through three of the same competitors. He opened with a 9-3 win over Joe Hyatt before defeating Ussery 9-2. He then downed Brent Underwood 9-2 before sending his competitor in the finals of the 1992 US Open 9-Ball Championships, Tommy Kennedy, to the loss side 9-4. This set Archer up to face and shut out Keith Bennett in one of the winners’ side semifinals.
Meanwhile, Eddie Wahdan, who’d opened by giving up just a pair of racks to ‘Snake,’ gave up 27 racks over his next four games. He downed Clay Branham 9-6, sent Roberts to the loss side 9-7, defeated Scott Rabon 9-6 and then, in the other winners’ side semifinal, survived a double-hill match versus Barry Mashburn. Wahdan gave up nine racks (to his two) in the hot seat match that made Archer the last undefeated man standing, or sitting, as it were, in the hot seat.
By the time Barry Mashburn showed up on the loss side to face him, Josh Roberts had run the gauntlet of four of his seven loss-side wins. He’d defeated Jimmy Broughton 7-2 and then, in order, defeated Ussery 7-4, survived a double-hill challenge from Mike Davis and eliminated Tommy Kennedy 7-3. Bennett arrived on the loss side to pick up Kim Davenport, who’d lost his third-round match to Mike Davis 9-2 and chalked up four in a row versus Ian Jones (2), Billy Fowler (3), Scott Rabon (4), and Jason Stemen (3).
Davenport advanced to the quarterfinals 7-3 over Bennett and was joined by Roberts, who’d eliminated Mashburn 7-2. Roberts and Davenport fought an almost-predictable, double-hill match which eventually eliminated Davenport and sent Roberts to the semifinals against Wahdan.
Roberts gave up just a single rack in those semifinals and earned his double-elimination-final shot at Archer. Roberts took the opening set 9-2. Archer battled him to double hill in the second set, but Roberts had the last ‘word,’ completing his loss-side run to claim title to the season finale of the 2024 Rack Race season.
The Rack Race almost doubled its participants in its second year, from 280 in 2023 to 500 (332 unique) to this year’s Race. At the end of each year, Michael Newsome (owner of the Rack & Grill locations, tour director for the Rack Race and an entrant in this year’s season finale) has guaranteed that the following year, money-added to the main events would double. He made it official for the third season, as well, guaranteeing, for example, that 2025’s season finale and championship will add $16,000 to the prize fund.
“The more we grow and get more support from the players participating,” said Newsome, “we will continue to do more money each year.”
Though the 2025 Rack Race schedule is still being formulated, there will, according to Newsome, be a minor change to the Race format. They will look to employ a ‘break box’ in the 2025 Rack Race. Players will have to break from the middle box, reducing the ability to sink the ‘wing’ ball as a prelude to repeated ‘break and run’ racks.
In the interim between the end of the Rack Race’s second season and the start of its third, Newsome and company (to include his wife, Avery) will hold the 2nd Annual Rack’s Carolina Classic on the weekend of Sept. 13-15 at the Rack & Grill III location in Aiken, SC. The weekend will feature a $500-added Jack and Jill 8-ball event, a $1,500-added 9-Ball event and a $5,000-added One Pocket event.
Newsome and his wife, Avery thanked the staffs at Rack & Grill II and III for their able assistance in helping to keep the Rack Race events running smoothly, as well as sponsors Predator, Iwan Simonis Cloth, digitalpool.com, Filta Environmental, Newsome Distributing, GFL, JTs Automotive Group, Salazar, Pepsi, CSRA Machine Fab, NationalBilliardAcademy.com, Hampton Inn and Hilton Garden Inn.
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