FOUNTAIN CITY, Wis. — The Summit USMTS National Championship presented by RacinDirt was back in action Friday for the eighth annual End of Summer Bash at the Mississippi Thunder Speedway.
Jake O’Neil came into the show with a series-best seven wins during the 2022 campaign, and earned the Sybesma Graphics Pole Award following heat race action.
With reigning USMTS National Champion Dereck Ramirez getting the green flag next to O’Neil in the front row, the pair of Cornett-powered machines made contact in the first corner which gave O’Neil a crumpled right rear quarter panel for the rest of the 42-lapper.
Nonetheless, O’Neil got the best of Ramirez and seized the lead out of the gate, but eight laps later it was another Jake the fans saw take the top spot when Jake Timm powered underneath the Arizona racer to lead lap nine at the high-banked third-mile dirt oval owned by his dad, Bob Timm.
Timm used the high side in turns one and two and the low-to-middle grooves in turns three and four to keep O’Neil at arm’s length through the first 18 laps when the lead duo caught the back of the field where 10 back-markers-to-be were involved in their own tussles.
Lapped traffic never became a factor though as rain began to fall and the caution flag waved with 20 or 42 laps in the books—two orbits shy of being able to call it a completed race.
Timm, who won here in May during the USMTS Dairyland Showdown, led the field back to the green flag after a 45-minute pause in the action with O’Neil following him around the high side of the racing surface.
A.J. Diemel and Tanner Mullens raced by Ramirez two laps later as O’Neil got by Timm for the lead on lap 27 and the lead duo checked out until they caught lapped traffic on lap 33.
With five to go, Diemel began to challenge Timm for second and took the spot away one lap later. He closed in on O’Neil at the end but fell three car-lengths short as O’Neil got the checkered flag first to grab his eight win of the year and 28th of his USMTS career.
The win was O’Neil’s first at the Mississippi Thunder Speedway and worth $10,000.
Meanwhile, Mullens snuck past Timm for third while points leader Dustin Sorensen rounded out the top five.
The finish:
Jake O’Neil, A.J. Diemel, Tanner Mullens, Jake Timm, Dustin Sorensen, Lance Mari, Terry Phillips, Jason Hughes, Cayden Carter, Shane DeVolder, Rodney Sanders, John Doelle, Zack VanderBeek, Keith Foss, Dan Ebert, Carlos Ahumada Jr., Dereck Ramirez, Kyle Brown, J.T. Wasmund, Brandon Givens, Matt Leer, Darron Fuqua, Nick Stroupe, Jacob Bleess, Jim Chisholm.