AUBURN, Mich. – For the third time in as many races, the DIRTcar Summit Racing Equipment Modified Nationals has seen a first-time winner.
Friday night at Tri-City Motor Speedway, Collin Thirlby etched his name into the record books, becoming the 77th different winner in the 12-year history of the series. To do it, Thirlby pressured leader Brian Brindley for over half of the 25-lap event and eventually made the move on him with nine-to-go, taking the lead for good.
“I just followed (Brindley), kept the car straight, kept the tires under me,” Thirlby said. “I saw Shannon Fisk – he was running the bottom, and I think with as many laps as I have around this place, I kinda knew where to go.”
Thirlby is a dealer/builder of the Diamond Race Cars chassis that he drives and has tuned it to his liking for the slick-and-smooth Tri-City track surface, which, coupled with his experience at TCMS, gave him the edge over his competition.
“The biggest thing is that I just have a lot of laps around here,” Thirlby said. “The track gets black-slick, top-to-bottom. These Diamond Race Cars, they’re known to be really good when it gets black like that.”
After working on Brindley since the drop of the green, Thirlby finally slipped by with a great run to his inside out of Turn 4 on Lap 16, and sped off, leading the rest of the distance en route to victory lane.
The Finish:
Feature (25 Laps): 1. 47-Collin Thirlby[3]; 2. 60-Shannon Fisk[1]; 3. 3B-Brian Brindley[2]; 4. 77-Joe Rokos[12]; 5. 19B-Chad Bauer[4]; 6. 92- Caleb Kill[6]; 7. 50-Chad Bennett[17]; 8. 1*-Wyatt Baker[5]; 9. 10-Jaycob Truemner[16]; 10. 66-Adam Hammer[11]; 11. 60W-Nate Wilbur[14]; 12. 9-Garrett Rons[7]; 13. 15-Brenden Baker[9]; 14. 81-Rick Swartout[18]; 15. 29-Steve Shellenberger[13]; 16. 99B-Brent Banning[8]; 17. 17-Thomas Wilbur[15]; 18. 20-Kevin Miller[10]