BELLEVILLE, Kan. — The bar was set high on Friday during the opening night of the Belleville Dirt Nationals, but the drivers of the Summit USMTS National Championship presented by RacinDirt stepped right over it and gave the Belleville High Banks fans a USMTS race of the year candidate.
Jason Hughes got the jump at the start, but a caution on the second lap after Rodney Sanders and Kyle Brown made contact slowed the field. Brown tagged the rear while Sanders got his spot back.
Hughes and Tanner Mullens battled door-to-door for the next five laps before the yellow flag flew for a second time on lap seven as Jake O’Neil was making a move around the outside of Mullens.
Two laps later, points leader Dustin Sorensen was credited with causing the race’s third caution with nine laps in the books. A wild back-and-forth tussle between Hughes and O’Neil came to a halt with a caution on lap 16.
O’Neil tried over and over to find a way around Hughes and then at the race’s halfway point, but then O’Neil snuck by on the inside of turn 2, slid up in front of Hughes in turn 3 and was the leader at the flag stand to complete lap 25.
That’s when the yellow flag made its fifth appearance when Dereck Ramirez came to a stop at the bottom of the second corner, dropping him from fourth to last on the ensuing restart.
Running eighth and looking for a way to move forward, Grant Junghans USMTS rookie of the year points leader Cayden Carter tagged the infield tractor tire racing with teammate Zack VanderBeek.
VanderBeek continued while Carter called it quits for the night.
That was the last caution of the race, but it certainly wasn’t the last bit of drama.
Without cautions to keep clean air on the nose of the leader, O’Neil looked like he was going to run away and hide but Rodney Sanders kept him in his crosshairs.
Sanders got his opportunity on the final lap when O’Neil scooted up the track in turn 1 after a nearly disastrous squabble with a pair of lapped cars.
The four-time USMTS National Champion closed up on the rear bumper of O’Neil but couldn’t make the pass, with O’Neil scoring his fifth win of the season. Sanders extended his year-long-plus dry spell in the process.
Also winless this year, Mullens recorded another solid to-five finish as he took third in front of Darron Fuqua while Hughes held on to round out the top five finishers.
The win was worth $10,000 to the 30-year-old from Tucson, Ariz. It was the 25th triumph of his USMTS career.
The Finish:
Feature (50 laps): 1. (4) 0 Jake O’Neil, 2. (6) 20 Rodney Sanders, 3. (2) 02 Tanner Mullens, 4. (14) 87 Darron Fuqua, 5. (1) 12 Jason Hughes, 6. (7) 38T Dylan Thornton, 7. (3) 44S Shane DeVolder, 8. (21) 4W Tyler Wolff, 9. (17) 75 Terry Phillips, 10. (10) 19 Dustin Sorensen, 11. (5) 33Z Zack VanderBeek, 12. (15) 60 Dan Ebert, 13. (18) 15W Kale Westover, 14. (9) 4R Dereck Ramirez, 15. (8) 21K Kyle Brown, 16. (22) 85 Jayson Good, 17. (24) 2G Brandon Givens, 18. (19) 19SB Lance Mari, 19. (20) 21 Jacob Bleess, 20. (16) 10C Cayden Carter, 21. (12) 8C Chris Clark, 22. (23) 65X Carlos Ahumada Jr., 23. (13) 77 Steven Bowers Jr., 24. (11) 55 Chris Kratzer