WHEATLAND, Mo. — Johnny Scott recorded a perfect night on Friday at Lucas Oil Speedway, as he continued his early season hot streak with the Lucas Oil Midwest Late Model Racing Ass’n.
It was his second consecutive series victory.
Scott was the first qualifier to roll out in qualifying and laid down a lap of 15.248 seconds that held up to best the field of 36 cars on hand.
After winning his heat, Scott started on the pole for the 30-lap main event and wasted no time in driving his Longhorn Chassis to the front of the field and setting sail, distancing himself from the field by over 4 seconds before hitting lapped traffic.
Kolby Vandenbergh controlled the second spot running the high line for the first 19 circuits, holding off advances from the likes of Jason Papich, Stormy Scott, Chris Simpson and Cole Wells.
With 10 laps to go Papich split multiple cars in a pack of lapped traffic to steal the runner-up spot. The California driver and car owner for Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series regular Earl Pearson Jr. would begin his pursuit of the race leader and was able to close to within just 1.349 seconds at the end.
The main event went caution free, as Johnny Scott picked up the $5,000 victory, his fourth career MLRA win and second in a late model at the Lucas Oil Speedway.
Papich finished second, while Stormy Scott topped off the podium in third. Chris Simpson would finish in fourth while Wells snagged the fifth spot in his first MLRA start of the season.
“We kind of hit on some stuff over there at Wichita (81 Speedway) and we have kind of been sticking to that,” commented Johnny Scott. “I’ve got to thank my brother, without him I wouldn’t be here because he keeps me in the loop and tells me what I probably should run. As well, I’ve got to thank my crew guys Levi, Ricky, and Little Buddy they work hard on this car, and heck Stormy’s crew they help a lot too. It’s a racing team.”
With Papich closing in during the closing laps Scott noted, “I knew he was coming, I just got bottled up a little bit there. There was probably about six cars in a bunch there and there was no where I could go, so I was just trying to hit my marks and it worked out for us tonight.”
The finish:
Feature (40 laps): 1. 1ST-Johnny Scott[1]; 2. 91P-Jason Papich[3]; 3. 2S-Stormy Scott[5]; 4. 32S-Chris Simpson[6]; 5. 7-Cole Wells[9]; 6. 58-Garrett Alberson[14]; 7. 15L-Payton Looney[8]; 8. 36M-Logan Martin[13]; 9. 15V-Kolby Vandenbergh[2]; 10. 21-Billy Moyer Jr[17]; 11. 91S-Rusty Schlenk[11]; 12. 25-Chad Simpson[10]; 13. 04-Tad Pospisil[18]; 14. 75-Terry Phillips[22]; 15. 10-Jacob Magee[15]; 16. 11-Trevor Gundaker[20]; 17. 93-Mason Oberkramer[16]; 18. 50-Kaeden Cornell[12]; 19. T6-Tommy Sheppard Jr[19]; 20. 1X-Aaron Marrant[4]; 21. 14G-Joe Godsey[21]; 22. 30-Todd Cooney[25]; 23. 78S-Steve Stultz[26]; 24. 22-Daniel Hilsabeck[23]; 25. 14W-Dustin Walker[24]; 26. (DNF) 18-Shannon Babb[7]