SEYMOUR, Wis. — Nick Anvelink visited BMRE Electrick Carts Victory Lane for the third straight WABAM Dirt Kings Late Model Tour race, being crowned King of the Mid-Summer Showdown at Outagamie Speedway on Friday night.
Anvelink won his heat race and drew the third-starting position for the 30-lap race, with Jim Schmidt, the Ken’s Sports Inc. Polesitter and Lukas Postl leading the field to the green flag.
Justin Ritchie took advantage of his fourth place starting position and raced three wide for second as Schmidt led the first lap. Ritchie took the lead from Schmidt on the next lap as they raced down the backstretch and into turns three and four with Ritchie prevailing coming out of turn four.
With Ritchie as the leader, Anvelink worked the outside of Schmidt and advanced to the second spot on lap four. Ritchie had several car lengths lead over Anvelink when the caution came out for an incident on the backstretch on lap six.
On the restart, Ritchie held off several challenges from Anvelink as he worked the top and the bottom of the track. Anvelink continued to work the top side of the track, throwing a slider on Ritchie for the lead going into turn three and completing the pass for the lead as they raced to the flagstand.
Anvelink led lap nine with Ritchie following. Behind them, Schmidt, Taylor Scheffler and Troy Springborn battled for position. Anvelink pulled away to a half straightaway lead on Ritchie as Scheffler worked his way to third past Schmidt. Scheffler and Ritchie battled for second, exchanging slide jobs at the halfway point and for the next couple laps.
Caution slowed the field with thirteen laps to go as Brett Swedberg came to a rest alongside the front stretch wall, going into turn one. On the restart, Ritchie chose to restart on the outside, giving Scheffler the inside as Anvelink paced the field. Anvelink continued to pull away from the field while Scheffler and Ritchie battled for position with Troy Springborn, Brad Mueller and Schmidt in pursuit.
With nine laps to go, Scheffler overtook Ritchie for second and set his sights on Avenlink who had a full straightaway lead on the field and gaining on the tail end of the field. Ritchie and Springborn battled for third, with Springborn advancing his position with three laps to go.
Anvelink worked through some lapped traffic in the closing laps, holding off Scheffler by 2.684 seconds to win his nineteenth WABAM Dirt Kings Late Model Tour race, his fifth visit to BMRE Electrick Carts Victory Lane at Outagamie Speedway.
Scheffler was second, followed by Springborn, and in a three-way battle for fourth, Ritchie prevailed over Ron Berna and Mueller.
The finish:
Feature (30 Laps): 1. 15-Nick Anvelink[3]; 2. 10S-Taylor Scheffler[6]; 3. 81-Troy Springborn[9]; 4. 70-Justin Ritchie[4]; 5. 66-Ron Berna[14]; 6. 89-Brad Mueller[5]; 7. 79-Jim Schmidt[1]; 8. 21F-Gunner Frank[13]; 9. 97-Justin Schmidt[15]; 10. 5-Luke Postl[2]; 11. 7-Joel Bennett[7]; 12. 9N-Tom Naeyaert[8]; 13. 03-Kyle Raddant[12]; 14. 54-Kevin Baldry[18]; 15. 27-Derek Janke[16]; 16. 20-Joe Reuter[20]; 17. 55-Joe Bongiorno[22]; 18. 9Z-Jayme Zidar[17]; 19. 99-Sawyer Specht[10]; 20. D1-Turk Letizia[21]; 21. 3-Brett Swedberg[11]; 22. 21-Todd Frank[19]