WEBSTER CITY, Iowa – Entering Saturday night, only Eric Stanton had ever won two Summit USRA Nationals main events.
After Saturday night’s seventh annual Summit USRA Nationals powered by MyRacePass, there are now three more racers with multiple wins and two new names added to the elite list of champions.
After a win on Thursday and a runner-up finish Friday night, Lucas Schott, started on the pole and paced all 40 laps of the USRA Modified main event at the historic half-mile Hamilton County Speedway.
It was the second victory for Schott at the Summit USRA Nationals. He won the event’s third running in 2016 at the Lakeside Speedway en route to the USRA Modified national title that year.
Jake Gallardo sits second in the national points battle and crossed the finish line in second behind Schott with four-time USMTS national champ Rodney Sanders third.
The fourth driver to see the checkered flag was Jacob Bleess and Josh Angst completed the top-five.
The 24-year-old pocketed $2,000 for his feature race win and padded his national points lead. Based on his 27 starts this season, Schott earned an extra $1,350 on the night.
Kyle Falck won last year’s American Racer USRA Stock Car main event and was cruising to a second consecutive title Saturday when the yellow flag waved with six laps to go in Saturday’s 35-lap finale.
Behind the 37-year-old Falck, Mitch Hovden was riding the high line around the historic half-mile dirt oval while Doug Keller got the caution he was hoping for after clawing his way to third after starting 13th. The running order was unchanged when the caution came out again two laps later.
Falck and Hovden streaked underneath the flagstand side by side with two laps remaining, but moments later Dan Jones passed the flagstand in a series of violent flips, resulting in a red flag to stop the race.
Jones, who lost the use of his legs after he broke his back in a logging accident in 2012 and uses hand controls in his Stock Car, was uninjured in the frightening crash.
Another quick caution before a lap could be completed made produced a second attempt at a green-white-checkered finish, but the result remained unchanged as Falck held off Hovden and Keller to score his seventh win of the 2020 campaign.
Behind Hovden and Keller, Patrick Graham of Ames and Thursday’s feature winner, Myles Michehl of fort Dodge, rounded out the top five at the finish line.
Falck — the 2016 Christie Door Company Iron Man Challenge champion — earned $1,500 for his efforts plus an additional $660 in bonus money for his 22 USRA Starts this season.
Like the Stock Cars, the final handful of laps in the USRA B-Mod feature race took twice as long to finish as the first 20 laps did thanks to a flurry of late-race cautions.
National points leader Jim Chisholm was the class of the field for the first 21 laps of Saturday’s 30-lap USRA B-Mod finale but contact with an infield tractor tire just as the yellow flag was waving left him with a busted left front wheel and flat tire.
That left two-time defending USRA B-Mod national champion Kris Jackson, two-time Iron Man champ Dan Hovden and two-time track champ Ty Griffith as the next three in line to fight for the championship trophy.
On the restart, Hovden tagged the outer concrete wall, leaving Griffith to battle Jackson for the lead, but a caution one lap later reset the field again. The yellow waved five more times before the checkered flag waved and saw Ben Moudry, Jake Richards, Taylor Skauge and Hovden involved in one or more of those along the way.
When the green flag was unfurled again, Chisholm was all the way back up to sixth but Jackson and Griffith pulled away to settle it among themselves. In the end, Jackson kept his national title hopes alive with his second Summit USRA Nationals victory while Griffith settled for second.
The 35-year-old registered his 18th feature win of 2020 and pocketed $1,250 for his efforts. Additionally, Jackson earned $30 for each of his USRA-sanctioned starts this season. That $1,320 bonus for his 44 starts more than doubled his one-night paycheck to $2,570.
Behind runner-up Griffith, Dillon McCowan rebounded for a solid third-place finish with Taylor Skauge taking the fourth position and Elma’s Brandon Hare rounding out the top five finishers.
He’s well on his way to a sixth national points title in the Mensink Racing Products USRA Hobby Stock division, but the one thing that has eluded Dustin Gulbrandson is a Saturday night feature win at the Summit USRA Nationals.
That item was crossed off his bucket list Saturday as the 30-year-old rolled to his 25th feature win of the year.
The win was worth $1,000 plus an additional $20 for each of his starts this season. That boosted his paycheck to $1,940 with his 47 starts.
After taking the lead on lap two, Gulbrandson led the final 24 laps with Tyler Schlumbohm— who won the 2018 Summit USRA Nationals at the I-35 Speedway — following him all the way to take runner-up honors.
Zack Smidt took the third spot, Levin Vander Weide finished fourth and 2020 Hamilton County Speedway track champion Scott Dobel completed the top five.
Fayette County Speedway track champion Brad Stahl of Castalia passed polesitter Justin Anderson on the second lap of the USRA Tuner main event and led the final 14 circuits to score the win.
USRA Tuner national points leader Brian Schoenbaum Jr. made the long haul from San Antonio, Texas, pay off with a second-place paycheck. Anderson held on for third, followed by Josh Hills and Josh Harms.
Stahl, 33, pocketed $300 for the win plus $180 for his 10 starts this season.