KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Tyler Wolff banked $12,002 for winning Friday night’s eighth annual Grant Junghans Memorial at Lakeside Speedway.
The 42-lap event was run under the Summit USMTS National Championship banner.
Terry Phillips took the lead from polesitter Tyler Davis from the outside of the front row. Phillips had luck on his side coming into the race after winning the first feature on Thursday and then drawing the lucky No. 2 pill in the redraw tonight and that was worth another $2,222 in $2 bills.
The first of two caution flags appeared on the third lap when Wednesday’s winner at the Beatrice Speedway, Jake O’Neil, suffered a right-front flat tire and smacked the red and white striped concrete wall at the top of turn two.
Gary Christian contested Phillips for the first seven laps but contact with a tire barrier damaged his left front suspension and he began to fall off the pace.
Wolff got by Davis and the pair moved into second and third, but Phillips was ahead by more than two seconds.
His lead shrank with each lap and Wolff eventually snuck past on the low side to lead lap 19. Wolff set sail and Kyle Strickler jumped into second on lap 24 with Wolff enjoying a 2.3-second advantage.
With most of the field preferring the low line, lapped traffic became an issue for the leader as Strickler closed in on Wolff’s rear bumper with 12 laps to go.
The yellow flag waved for the second and final time one lap later, giving Wolff clean air in front of him while Jacob Hobscheidt retiring from the race with a broken left front suspension after passing 12 cars from his 20th starting spot.
With the green flag waving again, Strickler faded while five-time USMTS national champ Rodney Sanders bolted into second with Phillips rejoining the fight for first place.
While Wolff and Sanders remained faithful to the shortest way around the four-tenths-mile high-banked clay oval, Phillips found comfort in running the hairy high line.
Wolff bested Sanders and Phillips to pocket $12,002 as the 8th annual Grant Junghans Memorial conqueror.
“I was wondering if I was messing up (running the bottom of the track), but I just thought this got me here so stay here and see what we have,” Wolff said. “It worked out for us.
“I was definitely concerned when that yellow came out. I had a feeling it wasn’t in my favor, but at the same time it just it is what it is.”
It was the sixth career USMTS victory for the driver of the No. 4W ARMI Contractors-sponsored MB Customs Race Cars powered by Elusive Competition Engines.
Wolff was joined on the podium by Sanders and Phillips, while Davis and 13th-starting Tanner Mullens rounded out the top five.
The finish:
Tyler Wolff, Rodney Sanders, Terry Phillips, Tyler Davis, Tanner Mullens, Kyle Strickler, Dan Ebert, Jake Timm, Cayden Carter, Zack VanderBeek, Jim Chisholm, Gary Christian, Alex Williamson, Jason Hughes, Kyle Brown, Dakota Sproul, Randal Schiffelbein Jr., Gabe Hodges, Steve Lavasseur, A.J. Hoff, Austin Siebert, Jacob Hobscheidt, Darron Fuqua, Shadren Turner, Chase Junghans, Lance Mari, Jake O’Neil.