COLCORD, Okla. — The Summit USMTS National Championship presented by RacinDirt traveled to Arrowhead Speedway on Friday for the ARMI Contractors USMTS Spring Salute and the fifth clash of the year in the ARMI Contractors South Region presented by Gene Nicholas, LLC.
From the Sybesma Graphics Pole, Oklahoma racer Gary Christian jumped out to the lead when the green flag waved but it didn’t last long as the Gorsuch Performance Caution Flag was displayed for an opening-lap pileup in turn two.
After several competitors paid a visit to the Danny Crane Racing Engines Hot Pity for repairs, the 40-lap main event was back underway with Christian fighting to hold back Osage, Iowa’s Jim Chisholm and Grant Junghans USMTS Rookie of the Year contender and Plattsmouth, Neb., resident Jacob Hobscheidt.
With drivers working every inch of real estate between the fences at the state-of-the-art speed palace, Christian and Chisholm began to pull away to make it a two-car race.
While Christian used every part of the middle and high side of the clay to hold the top spot, Chisholm crept around the bottom the racing surface and reeled in the leader.
Chisholm inched ahead at the flagstand to lead the 16th lap, and Christian fought hard to retake control but ended up sliding into the outside concrete wall a few laps later, leaving Hobscheidt with the job of taking down Chisholm while Tyler Wolff found himself third for the restart with the last half of the race left to go.
Two laps later, fourth-place-running Rodney Sanders suffered a right front flat tire, sending the five-time and defending Summit USMTS National Champion to the rear of the field.
While Chisholm tip-toed around the low side and continued to add laps as the leader, spectacular racing was the norm throughout the field with no position safe.
Wolff brought the Arrowhead Speedway audience to their feet with ten laps to go when he wrinkled the rear quarter panel of Chisholm’s machine and then pulled even with Chisholm in the back-stretch.
After the challenge, however, Chisholm reasserted himself as the man in charge and was never challenged again, crossing beneath the checkered flag with a 3.708-second cushion over runner-up Terry Phillips.
“Last year we learned more than I learned my whole career,” Chisholm said in Victory Fuel Victory Lane, referring to racing full time in 2023, “but I still make those mistakes—as we seen a week ago—but this car’s been like super super bad fast, and we actually took a little bit of speed out of it, but it made it a lot easier to drive.
“It sucks to see what happened to him (Christian). I think that would have been probably one of one of the funnest races of my life. I’d get an inch every once in a while then he’d come right back and gain that much back and more, so it was a really fun race. I seen Wolff run around me on the outside and gave me a little shove to get out of the way so I was like ‘I better get down and run my line. It’s so treacherous up on the top with that big cushion so I figured it was safest for me to run just a safe, smooth line and then if someone wanted to go around me then go around me.”
In addition to becoming the first repeat winner in the first seven races of the 2024 season for the Summit USMTS Modifieds, the 21-year-old garnered a $5,000 paycheck for the seventh win of his USMTS career, tying him with Corey Dripps on the all-time wins list.
Meanwhile, Jake O’Neil joined the Featherlite Top-Three podium with a third-place finish despite rolling off the grid from 19th. His effort earned him the FK Rod Ends Hard Charger Award.
Not far behind, Dan Ebert stormed from 17th to fourth at the finish while Wolff rounded out the top five. Jacob Hobscheidt, Jake Timm, Gabe Hodges, Chad Wheeler and Lance Mari completed the top ten.
Adding to his take, Chisholm also took home contingency awards from Edelbrock, Gorsuch Performance Solutions, MD3, Swift Springs, Victory Fuel and VP Racing.
Feature Finish (40 Laps)
1. (3) 24C Jim Chisholm, Osage, Iowa, 2. (6) 75 Terry Phillips, Springfield, Mo., 3. (19) 0 Jake O’Neil, Tucson, Ariz., 4. (17) 60 Dan Ebert, Lake Shore, Minn., 5. (9) 4W Tyler Wolff, Fayetteville, Ark., 6. (4) 01 Jacob Hobscheidt, Plattsmouth, Neb., 7. (15) 49 Jake Timm, Winona, Minn., 8. (12) 7G Gabe Hodges, Lebo, Kan., 9. (22) 88 Chad Wheeler, Muskogee, Okla., 10. (11) 19SB Lance Mari, El Centro, Calif., 11. (8) 65 Tyler Davis, Haysville, Kan., 12. (21) 91 Joe Duvall, Justice, Okla., 13. (7) 99L Steve Lavasseur, River Falls, Wis., 14. (23) 15W Alex Williamson, Rushford, Minn., 15. (14) 12 Jason Hughes, Watts, Okla., 16. (13) 20 Rodney Sanders, Happy, Texas, 17. (20) 02 Tanner Mullens, Wichita, Kan., 18. (16) 21K Kyle Brown, Madrid, Iowa, 19. (25) 12H Mike Hansen, Dickinson, N.D., 20. (2) 16 Austin Siebert, Grandview, Mo., 21. (10) 55H A.J. Hoff, Mantorville, Minn., 22. (1) 58X Gary Christian, Broken Bow, Okla., 23. (5) 5 Jon Mitchell, Texarkana, Texas, 24. (24) 32 D.J. Shannon, Merced, Calif., 25. (26) 87 Darron Fuqua, Mayetta, Kan., 26. (18) 2SS Mark Smith, Anthony, N.M.