WHEATLAND, Mo. – Rodney Sanders took command midway through Saturday night’s 40-lap feature at Lucas Oil Speedway and went on to win the 10th annual USMTS Slick Mist Show-Me Shootout presented by Foley Equipment.
Sanders, of Happy, Texas, held off Dereck Ramirez and Terry Phillips in a two-lap shootout after a pair of late cautions wiped out his big lead.
It was the two-time series champ’s 91st career USMTS win, but his first triumph in a modified at Lucas Oil Speedway.
“We won a late model race here a couple of years ago, but I kind of have a love-hate relationship with this place,” said Sanders, the Casey’s General Stores USMTS National Championship points leader who picked up his fifth series win of 2019.
It was worth $3,000.
“You can go out and win one night and not make it out of the B Main the next,” Sanders added. “But if you have a good car, you can come from deep in the field.”
Which the 29-year-old had to do after being forced to come through a Real Racing Wheels B Main after a sixth-place heat race finish.
That left Sanders started outside of row seven in the main event with a lot of work to do.
Tyler Wolff got the jump from his outside front row starting position and roared to the lead, building a two-second cushion over Hunter Marriott by lap seven.
As Wolff began to encounter lapped traffic by lap 10, Marriott cut into his lead and was within a couple of car lengths when the first caution waved on lap 12.
Phillips, a two-time winner of this event, was running third and Sanders had moved all the way from 14th to fourth.
Sanders gained momentum after the restart and soon was in second, then used a high-side pass out of turn four to move past Wolff and into the lead to complete lap 20.
It looked as if the race would go green the rest of the way with Sanders checking out.
He was leading Phillips by more than three seconds when a caution with just two laps remaining wiped out that cushion and gave Phillips and third-running Ramirez a two-lap chance to steal the win.
Sanders was up for the challenge. He finished about three car-lengths clear of Ramirez with Phillips third, Marriott fourth and Jake O’Neil fifth.
“I was really tight down on the bottom and I had to really hit my marks to make it go down there,” Sanders said of the late restarts. “I can’t thank my crew enough. We struggled all night long. We were in a fire drill all night long.”
Phillips, who won the Casey’s Hunt for the USMTS National Championship opener on Thursday at the 81 Speedway in Park City, Kan., had to make a quick engine change after blowing a motor during hot laps.
His crew did so in time for him to earn a heat race win.
“We were fortunate to get where we’re at,” Phillips said of his night. “I wish we’d have had a little more time to work on the car, but that’s the way it goes. We were fortunate to get up there and stay in Dereck’s way in the heat race. The new motor wasn’t running. It was just thrashing.
“But all in all, it was a pretty good night.”
In local weekly action, Andy Bryant took the lead early, then withstood challenges from season points leader Kris Jackson on multiple restarts over the final 12 laps to earn his second Ozark Golf Cars USRA B-Mod feature win of the season.
Toby Ott started up front and led all 20 laps in a dominant O’Reilly Auto Parts Street Stocks feature win. It was his fifth win of the season.
The finish:
Rodney Sanders, Dereck Ramirez, Terry Phillips, Hunter Marriott, Jake O’Neil, Jason Hughes, Jason Pursley, Jared Russell, Chase Domer, R.C. Whitwell, Joe Duvall, Darron Fuqua, Ryan Middaugh, Chad Wheeler, Lucas Gibbs, Adam Kates, Chase Jones, Jerad Fuller, John Allen, Robbie Reed, Jake Nightingale, Tyler Davis, Zack VanderBeek, Tyler Wolff, Robert Heydenreich, Donnie Fellers, Jon Sheets, Kyle Thompson, Mike Striegel.