PONTOON BEACH, Ill. — In a milestone year for the DIRTcar Summit Racing Equipment Modified Nationals, it was only fitting that its six-time champion hit a milestone of his own Friday night at Tri-City Speedway.
Mike Harrison brought his A-game into the 25-lap feature and showed everyone why he is the tour’s only 50-time winner, putting the moves on mid-race leader Kyle Steffens just after halfway and driving off with the $1,000 check in his fourth career victory at Tri-City in Summit Modified action.
“We actually found something that we had screwed-up the other day on my other car, and we had it screwed up on this one too. Ever since we fixed that [problem], we’re back in business,” Harrison said.
Harrison began his run to the front from outside row four and quickly jumped into the podium, making the move for second on Michael Long on a lap-nine restart. After several laps of digging to leader Steffens’ inside, Harrison finally got enough momentum down low and threw a big slide job into turn three to take the top spot as they completed lap 14. From that point onward, Harrison put it on cruise control.
Steffens, Long and polesitter Rick Conoyer were chasing Harrison down late in the race when they all came together after contact in turns three and four, ending each of their nights with results of 16th, 15th and 18th, respectively.
Dean Hoffman and 15-year-old Hunt Gossum assumed the podium spots on the restart and held them back around to the checkered for their best finishes with the Summit Mods this season.
“I work for a living, so I have to go to work sometimes to pay the bills at home. But I will go to the races that I can physically go to that’s right for my team. The other ones, I just don’t, and I let the points play out the way they’re gonna play out,” Harrison said.
The finish:
Feature (25 Laps) 1. 24H-Mike Harrison [8]; 2. 1D-Dean Hoffman [12]; 3. 99-Hunt Gossum [6]; 4. 3L-Jeff Leka [5]; 5. 128-Zach Schantz [14]; 6. 77-Ray Bollinger [11]; 7. 87Z-Zeb Moake [15]; 8. 59R-Jacob Rexing [9]; 9. 9H-John DeMoss [19]; 10. 21M-Willy Myers [16]; 11. 24-Zeke McKenzie [13]; 12. 79D-Caleb DeMoss [22]; 13. 22-Wade Wenthe [10]; 14. 1Z-Zach Hoffman [17]; 15. 18L-Michael Long [4]; 16. 8-Kyle Steffans [2]; 17. K19-Will Krup [3]; 18. 14-Rick Conoyer [1]; 19. 327-Chuck Goodman [21]; 20. 117-Frankie Wellman [18]; 21. 25W-Allen Weisser [7]; 22. 4A-Dave Wietholder [20]