BELLEVILLE, Kan. — Jason Martin made the trek to the United Rebel Sprint Series’ Fourth Annual Belleville 305 Sprint Car Nationals on a mission.
And he made his way through Friday’s preliminary event in impressive fashion, earning the pole position for the feature event by racking up the most points in heat and qualifying race action and then leading all 20 rounds atop the half-mile Belleville High Banks clay oval to collect the $2,500 winner’s share.
Slicing through traffic much of the way in the non-stop affair, Martin took the checkered flag with a gaudy 5.977-second advantage aboard the Myers-powered REZAC Concrete/Trucks Plus/Bybee Electric No. 5x Eagle with J.D. Johnson holding off a late bid from Luke Cranston for runner-up honors.
“We were a little too tight in the qualifier, so I freed it up for the feature and freed it up too much,” Martin explained afterward. “I felt like I was just barely hanging onto it at times.”
After outgunning fellow front row starter Tyler Drueke for the point on the opening round, lapped traffic proved to be the biggest obstacle with Martin putting all but the top 13 finishers at least one lap down as all 23 starters that took the green flag lasted to see the checkered flag after scheduled fifth-starter Dusty Ballenger suffered pre-race mechanical problems that cut his night short.
“Traffic was wild, especially off of turn two and then down the backstretch,” Martin said. “They would be going about the same speed and then it was like they pulled a parachute, I closed up on them so fast.”
While Martins successfully navigated traffic to stay in command throughout, Wichita’s J.D. Johnson battled past Zach Blurton for second in the opening handful of laps and held the position throughout aboard the Briley-powered Evans Building Co. No. 98 J&J.
“If we could have caught a caution at some point, I think we might have had a chance to make it interesting,” Johnson commented afterward.
Dicing through traffic, Johnson nearly lost his grasp on the runner-up position in the final corner. “I had to check up behind a lapped car and Luke (Cranston) about got by on the bottom.”
Ness City’s Cranston settled for the show position aboard the Myers-powered Southwest Family Farms No. 20 Maxim with Blurton and Drueke rounding out the top five.
The finish:
Feature (20 Laps): 1. 5x-Jason Martin (1), 2. 98-J.D. Johnson (4), 3. 20-Luke Cranston (7), 4. 2J-Zach Blurton (3), 5. 12-Tyler Drueke (2), 6. 91-Jeff Stasa (8), 7. 911-Ty Williams (9), 8. 45x-Kyler Johnson (14), 9. 5-Stu Snyder (6), 10. 21x-Taylor Velasquez (21), 11. 8j-Steven Richardson (11), 12. 7c-Toby Chapman (13), 13. 74-Connor Atkinson (15), 14. 23-Brandon Bosma (19), 15. 10-Jordan Knight (17), 16. 29s-Blake Scott (18), 17. 50-Jed Werner (23), 18. 9-John Webster (10), 19. 16-Scott Cochran (20), 20. 7-Shane Sundquist (16), 21. 2b-Brett Becker (12), 22. 43-Adam Trimble (22), 23. 65-Richard Wilbee (24), 24. 2d-Dusty Ballenger (5 – DNS).