10/6/2024
Lucas Oil MLRA
Chris Simpson Rolls To $10,000 Victory In MLRA Fall Nationals Finale
Wheatland, MO (October 5, 2024) – After playing the role of bridesmaid the prior two nights, Chris Simpson proved to be the man to beat on Saturday night in winning the $10,000 finale of the 2024 MLRA “Fall Nationals” at the Lucas Oil Speedway in Wheatland, MO.
The Oxford, IA driver was buried deep in the field following MyRacePass qualifying, but managed to race from fifth to the runner up position in his heat race, good enough to put him into the 8th starting position for the feature. Dustin Hodges grabbed his second MRP Fast Time award of the season and started from the pole, alongside of Stormy Scott for the 50 lap feature event.
On the initial start, Scott jumped before entering the Nutrien Ag Solutions Start Zone, resulting in a one row penalty that moved point leader Chad Simpson to the outside front row. Chad Simpson would capitalize, and took control on the opening lap with Hodges in tow.
By lap 12 Chad Simpson had to begin working his way through lapped traffic, all the while Chris Simpson was methodically working his way toward the front along the low line. The brotherly battle would heat up with Chris making his way into second on lap 11 setting up a battle between them as they navigated lapped traffic. Chris Simpson made the Swift Springs Move of the race on lap 18 when he charged to the inside of Chad Simpson and took the lead exiting turn four.
The lone caution of the night waved on lap 30, when Ryan Gustin slowed on the front stretch. Gustin would exit the track under his own power, retiring from the main event where he would be scored in 20th in the final run down after winning the first two nights of the Fall Nationals.
After dropping to as low as 6th on lap 12, Stormy Scott was the only driver in the closing laps to apply pressure to the back bumper of Chris Simpson. After restarting in second, Scott was able to close to within a couple of car lengths in the closing laps, but Chris Simpson would go on to capture his second MLRA win of the season by 1.008 seconds over Scott.
Tony Jackson Jr. grabbed his first podium finish of the weekend with a third-place run, ahead of Dillon McCowan and Chad Simpson.
Chris Simpson added the MD3 Most Laps Led contingency to his portfolio in the dominating performance that found him to be unbeatable on Saturday night. “If you would have told me that (being unbeatable) after we qualified, I would say you were nuts, we timed really bad.”
“This was a good way to end it,” Simpson said of his weekend. “We have been working hard all year and had speed, just kind of stupid stuff happened like last time we were here, we broke the power steering line during our warm up lap and kind of ruined our points deal.”
Chad Simpson now holds a 65-point advantage heading into the final three races of the season, while Chris Simpson moves to second after entering the weekend with a 200 point deficit. Tony Jackson Jr. also made-up ground, after entering the weekend 100 points behind Chad Simpson he now rests just 75 points from a third career MLRA championship.
Scott’s runner up was his second top five finish of the weekend, finishing no worse than 7th in the three night affair. “We feel like we have qualifying figured out, we’re just trying to work on figuring out what we need on these new cars for when the race track starts to dry out and in these longer races. We were definitely better tonight, there was more moisture in it for sure but I think we found some gains. Hopefully we can come do this again and put it in victory lane.”
Jackson’s podium run marked his 9th top five finish of the season. “We had a good car all weekend, I just can’t qualify here for whatever reason. I should probably work on that for as many times as we come here,” exclaimed Jackson. “It was a good race track, a fun race track, and we had a great car tonight,” he concluded.
Lucas Oil MLRA action will resume this Thursday October 10th, when the series makes a visit to the I-70 Speedway in Odessa, MO for a $7,000 to win feature event. The 2024 season will then close out with two big nights of racing on Friday and Saturday at the Tri-City Speedway in Granite City, IL for the annual “MLRA Championship Weekend”.
Lucas Oil Speedway Contingencies 10/5/24
Lap Leaders – Chad Simpson (1 - 18), Chad Simpson (19 - 50)
Cautions – 1
MyRacePass “Overall Fast Time Award" – Dustin Hodges (14.479 sec.)
Outerwears Crew Chief of the Race – Chad Simondsen
MD3 "Most Laps Led" – Chris Simpson (32)
Swift Springs “Move of the Race” – Chris Simpson
Sunoco Race Fuel “Rookie of the Race” – Aaron Marrant
PEM Racing "4th Place Finisher" – Dillon McCowan
Fluidyne: "5th Place Finisher: – Chad Simpson
Sunoco "Engine Builders Challenge" – Durham
Midwest Sheet Metal "Points Leader Spoiler Challenge" – Chad Simpson
MSD Performance Holley: “1st B-Main NON-Qualifier” – Earl Pearson Jr.
MD3 Final Finisher: – Jimmy Vanzndt
Fall Nationals Night #3 50 Laps | 00:25:35.083
- 32-Chris Simpson[8]; 2. 2S-Stormy Scott[2]; 3. 56JR-Tony Jackson Jr[5]; 4. 8-Dillon McCowan[16]; 5. 25-Chad Simpson[3]; 6. 50C-Kayden Clatt[7]; 7. 36M-Logan Martin[13]; 8. 22-Daniel Hilsabeck[6]; 9. 11T-Trevor Gundaker[14]; 10. 2T-Tyler Stevens[10]; 11. 22H-Dustin Hodges[1]; 12. 31C-Cole Henson[9]; 13. 78S-Steve Stultz[15]; 14. 15T-Tyler Kuykendall[18]; 15. 15S-Clayton Stuckey[21]; 16. 11-Jeff Herzog[19]; 17. 65-Jon Binning[22]; 18. (DNF) 1XMJ-Matt Johnson[20]; 19. (DNF) 9G-Joseph Gorby[17]; 20. (DNF) 19R-Ryan Gustin[4]; 21. (DNF) 29-Keith Hammett[11]; 22. (DNF) 93-Mason Oberkramer[12]; 23. (DNF) 1XM-Aaron Marrant[23]; 24. (DNF) 67-Jimmy Vanzandt[24]
B Feature 1 Fast Shafts10 Laps | 00:07:37.811
- 9G-Joseph Gorby[3]; 2. 15T-Tyler Kuykendall[2]; 3. 11-Jeff Herzog[1]; 4. 1XMJ-Matt Johnson[12]; 5. 15S-Clayton Stuckey[4]; 6. 65-Jon Binning[6]; 7. 46-Earl Pearson Jr[8]; 8. 10M-Jacob Magee[10]; 9. 67-Jimmy Vanzandt[5]; 10. 1XM-Aaron Marrant[9]; 11. (DNF) 7M-Allan Middendorf[7]; 12. (DNS) 20TC-Tristan Chamberlain; 13. (DNS) 16-Rusty Griffaw; 14. (DNS) 1S-Shawn Knuckles
H1-Flo Sports8 Laps | 00:07:46.278
- 22H-Dustin Hodges[1]; 2. 56JR-Tony Jackson Jr[2]; 3. 31C-Cole Henson[3]; 4. 36M-Logan Martin[6]; 5. 11-Jeff Herzog[5]; 6. 67-Jimmy Vanzandt[8]; 7. 1XM-Aaron Marrant[7]; 8. 1S-Shawn Knuckles[4]
H2-Simpson Race Products8 Laps | 00:10:06.836
- 25-Chad Simpson[2]; 2. 50C-Kayden Clatt[1]; 3. 29-Keith Hammett[3]; 4. 78S-Steve Stultz[6]; 5. 9G-Joseph Gorby[4]; 6. (DNF) 7M-Allan Middendorf[8]; 7. (DNF) 20TC-Tristan Chamberlain[5]; 8. (DNF) 16-Rusty Griffaw[7]
H3-Earnhardt Technologies8 Laps | 00:03:54.012
- 2S-Stormy Scott[1]; 2. 22-Daniel Hilsabeck[4]; 3. 2T-Tyler Stevens[3]; 4. 11T-Trevor Gundaker[6]; 5. 15T-Tyler Kuykendall[7]; 6. 65-Jon Binning[5]; 7. 10M-Jacob Magee[2]; 8. (DNS) 49W-Justin Wells
H4- Lucas Oil8 Laps | 00:02:41.429
- 19R-Ryan Gustin[1]; 2. 32-Chris Simpson[5]; 3. 93-Mason Oberkramer[2]; 4. 8-Dillon McCowan[4]; 5. 15S-Clayton Stuckey[6]; 6. 46-Earl Pearson Jr[7]; 7. (DNF) 1XMJ-Matt Johnson[3]
Article Credit: Billy Rock
Submitted By: Billy Rock
