PONTOON BEACH, Ill. — Tyler Nicely padded his stats Tuesday night at Tri-City Speedway, leading another DIRTcar Summit Racing Equipment Modified Nationals feature flag-to-flag, garnering his ninth career victory with the series.
The 27-year-old from Owensboro, Ky., took advantage of his pole starting spot, grabbed the lead on the opening lap and never looked back, holding off all pressure from behind to secure the win.
One big pressure-applier was six-time Summit Modified champion Mike Harrison, who was gunning to make Hell Tour history as the first driver to win both the late model and modified feature in the same Summer Nationals program.
Harrison made a great effort to get close enough to make a move in the closing laps but was unable to seal the deal as Nicely drove off to victory.
“I knew Harrison was gonna be there, I could see him on a couple laps,” Nicely said. “I started messing-up my entry [in turns three and four] and it was really messing me up all the way through the corner. I knew when the caution came out, I was gonna have to hit three perfect laps.”
The finish:
Feature (20 Laps): 1. 25-Tyler Nicely[1]; 2. K9-Will Krup[15]; 3. 24H-Mike Harrison[2]; 4. 36-Kenny Wallace[6]; 5. 130-Chase Allen[5]; 6. 51-Timmy Hill[10]; 7. 76-Shawn Knuckles[3]; 8. 99B-Blake Brown[18]; 9. 84G-Gary Gross[16]; 10. 24T-Trevor Ringle[12]; 11. 27R-Steve Rex[20]; 12. 54-Zachary Hawk[19]; 13. 00S-Chris Spalding[11]; 14. 1A-Steve Meyer Jr[7]; 15. 21J-Clay Harris[8]; 16. 34D-Treb Jacoby[14]; 17. 14C-Rick Conoyer[21]; 18. 19-Chad Bauer[13]; 19. 82-Dalton Lane[22]; 20. 13-Charlie Mefford[9]; 21. 18L-Michael Long[4]; 22. 1D-Dean Hoffman[17]