WHEATLAND, Mo. — Chalk up a third straight Missouri Metal Buildings ULMA Late Model feature victory for Johnny Fennewald.
Fennewald led all the way to capture the $1,000 winner’s check Thursday night at Lucas Oil Speedway.
Fennewald, after a slow start to his season, continued his recent red-hot surge. While not quite as dominant as in his last two wins, this also was hardly in doubt as the Appleton City driver led all 25 laps and beat Larry Ferris by 3.7 seconds.
Tucker Cox was third, Todd McCoin fourth and reigning track champion Cole Henson was fifth.
“We didn’t even know if we were even gonna be able to race tonight, we had so much rain,” Fennewald said. “They put on a heck of a race track every week and it was just phenomenal tonight.”
Fennewald finished 10th and 11th the first two features of 2021, digging a big points hole. But the winning streak has closed Henson’s gap over him to unofficially 39 points, a gain of 16 from the beginning of the night and more than a 50-point gain over three races.
“The car was really good,” Fennewald said. “I thought we were gonna be too tight, but we hit it right on the head of the nail.
“I just can’t thank all the guys enough, to work on two race cars and start both of them on the front row.”
A three-car pileup on lap one of the late model main event included Ferrris, Joe Walkenhorst and Jay Fields and brought out the caution. All three were able to continue and Ferris quickly moved into contention by lap five, passing Cox for second place.
Once the race settled into a green-flag rhythm, Fennewald set sail at the front and began to pull away. He led by 2.2 seconds when a lap-14 caution waved and wiped out his margin.
But the track champion from 2017-19 quickly regained command as the race returned to and remained green over the final 11 laps.
Also earning feature victories were Kris Jackson (Ozark Golf Cars USRA B-Mods), Matt Johnson (Cedar Creek Beef Jerky USRA Modifieds) and James McMillin (USRA Stock Cars).
A total of 95 cars checked into the pits in the special weeknight event to kick off the 4th of July weekend.
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