VISALIA, Calif. — Steven Snyder Jr. thrilled the capacity crowd and pocketed the $10,000 payday of an instant classic Championship Night K1 Race Gear Keith Kunz Motorsports Challenge feature to claim his league-leading fifth career feature victory with the POWRi Non-Wing Outlaw Micro League presented at Plaza Park Raceway.
Forming the format of Championship Night through event points tallied through prelim competitions a strong field of 75 entries of POWRi Outlaw Non-Wing Micro division in the K1 Race Gear KKM Challenge would find Jake Andreotti set the quick hot-lap time with 11.864 seconds. Ashton Torgerson and Brecken Reese would gain the B-feature victories as Teagan Moles would win the C-feature.
Locking in the top four finishers from each preliminary event would witness Jeffery Pahule, Austin Torgerson, Kale Drake, Daison Pursley, Snyder, Broedy Graham, K.J. Snow and Gavin Miller all compete in a ‘King of the Park’ dash to arrange the feature starting lineup with Pahule gaining the victory and pole position.
Feature Race
Soaring onto the track for K1 Race Gear Championship Night feature racing for the Keith Kunz Motorsports Challenge would see Pahule battle outside front-row contender Snyder as the green flag flew with Snyder taking the front of the field using a daring diamond line around Plaza Park Raceway as Pahule, Austin Torgerson, Miller, and Snow all filed in behind inside the early contending top five as the caution flag waved after the initial lap.
Restarting on lap two would find Snyder protecting the lead from Pahule as drivers all quickly went to the high side of Plaza Park Raceway while quickly catching up to lap traffic.
Separating from the field by over a second, Snyder would continue to appear to be the crème of the racing crop as laps quickly ticked away as lap traffic would come into play. Sliding each other on both sides of the smooth track while weaving through lap traffic the top two would continue to show the fastest line.
Side-by-side battling for nearly half the race, Snyder and Pahule would have a slide-fest for the lead as Miller would then throw his name into the mix with Austin Torgerson and Pursley rounding out the top five.
Inadvertent contact battling for the top spot would cause a bunching of the field up front, resulting in a caution between a hooked-together Miller and Torgerson with six laps remaining while bunching the field back together for late-race dramatics.
Snyder clung to the lead and took the checkered flag for his first POWRi Non-Wing Outlaw Micro victory of the year as Pahule would finish in the closely contended second spot with Jett Barnes surging late in the final podium placement.
“Jeffery raced me really clean and I have a lot of respect for him, it was really cool to finish one-two with him on the first night and then flip the spots tonight,” said Snyder. “Coming out here and doing this good just proves how good our Hyper Racing program is and hat’s off to this crew because this track was perfect.”
Feature Finish (35 Laps)
1. 21SS-Steven Snyder Jr[2]; 2. 44X-Jeffery Pahule[1]; 3. 55-Jett Barnes[12]; 4. 86-Daison Pursley[5]; 5. 29A-Jake Andreotti[15]; 6. 8-Corbin Rueschenberg[18]; 7. 41C-Brian Carber[24]; 8. 20Q-Brecken Reese[10]; 9. 95H-Chelby Hinton[19]; 10. 99-Cameron Paul[20]; 11. 71-Kale Drake[8]; 12. 95-Nathan Ward[23]; 13. 66-Broedy Graham[7]; 14. 4K-Khloe Cotton[11]; 15. 21-Cash Lovenburg[22]; 16. (DNF) 3-Cole Schroeder[17]; 17. (DNF) 71K-Gavin Miller[3]; 18. (DNF) 88-Austin Torgerson[4]; 19. (DNF) 2-Taylor Mayhew[21]; 20. (DNF) 7-Quinn Thurein[16]; 21. (DNF) 02-Ashton Torgerson[9]; 22. (DNF) 4-Jett Yantis[13]; 23. (DNF) 39-Russ Disinger[14]; 24. (DNF) 24-KJ Snow[6].