WHEATLAND, Mo. – In a winner-take-all, three-way battle for a track championship for the second straight year, Johnny Fennewald came out on top again.
Fennewald led flag-to-flag in a caution-free Warsaw Auto Marine & RV ULMA Late Model feature on Saturday night to win his third-straight Lucas Oil Speedway track championship as it came to the wire.
he finished 1.57 seconds in front of Aaron Marrant to claim the feature and the title, unofficially by seven points over Marrant. Ashlee Lancaster was third in the feature and Kaeden Cornell finished fourth to wind up third in the final track points.
Other champions crowned on Rempfer Memorial Season Championship Night Presented by Bill Roberts Chevrolet-Buick and KOLR/KRBK were Toby Ott (O’Reilly Auto Parts Street Stocks), Robbie Reed (Pitts Homes USRA Modifieds) and Kris Jackson (Ozark Golf Cars USRA B-Mods). Jackson doubled his fun by winning the feature as well.
Gean Davlin won the Street Stocks feature while Matt Johnson picked up the USRA Modified main event as the Big RV Weekly Racing Series season concluded.
Fennewald began the night under an identical scenario as one year ago, trailing Marrant by two points with Cornell just four behind the leader. So it boiled down to whichever of the three finished ahead of the others would, once again, walk away the winner.
Fennewald won his heat race and earned a front-row starting position with Marrant starting fourth and Cornell fifth. Fennewald wasted no time opening a big lead, posting a five-second cushion over Marrant by lap 12.
“I knew we were sitting second after last week and we had been struggling for about a month and a half,” Fennewald said. “We finally figured out our problem about halfway (through) last weekend. We had a pretty good run last week, considering the track conditions.
“When I saw this thing slicking off, I knew it was my kind of track. I knew if I could sit on the front row I could win this deal. We feel like we’ve got a good hot rod again.”
Lapped traffic slowed Fennewald a bit over the final laps as Marrant cut into the gap. But except for a near run-in with a slower car, Fennewald handled his business without any issues.
“I’m not one that’ll catfish around the bottom,” Fennewald said. “I knew with that rubber (on the track) I was gonna have to do something. I apologize to Larry Jones (lapped car) but I could only follow him for so long before I had to move him. I didn’t want to lose this deal.”
In victory lane, an excited Fennewald pointed to a large contingent from his hometown in the crowd and thanked them.
“All these people from Appleton City here, I appreciate you coming out,” he said. “I hope you enjoyed that. It was kind of nice doing that, in front of a hometown crowd.”
Gean Davlin’s first appearance at Lucas Oil Speedway was a winning one as he led the final 14 laps to earn the O’Reilly Auto Parts Street Stocks feature.
Meanwhile, Toby Ott’s eighth-place finish was plenty good enough to clinch the season championship for the second time in three years.
Davlin started fourth and he was at or near the front throughout the 20-lapper. He indicated that he looked forward to returning in October for the Big Buck 50 Presented by Whitetail Trophy Hunt.
Davlin passed Brian Brown for the lead on lap seven, just before the race’s second caution. Davlin and Chuck Knight broke away in a two-car battle up front until another caution six laps later bunched the field.
Davlin controlled things from there, finishing about six car lengths in front of Knight, with Johnny Coats third and Brian Brown in fourth.
Kris Jackson capped a dominating season in the Ozark Golf Cars USRA B-Mod division by leading all 20 laps for his seventh feature triumph at Lucas Oil Speedway.
Jackson, who’s also the USRA B-Mod national points leader and reigning national champ, started on the pole and bolted to the lead. He had to endure three cautions the rest of the way as he finished 1.68 seconds in front of runner-up J.C. Newell. Andy Bryant was third and Josh Cain fourth.
Jackson last won the Lucas Oil Speedway track championship in 2017 and this was the fourth title of his career at the speedway.
Jackson began the night 50 points in front of J.C. Morton. Any remaining mystery disappeared when Morton suffered a mechanical failure during hot laps and was unable to continue – though in the end it wouldn’t have mattered with the way Jackson was in command from start to finish.
Matt Johnson led all the way and held off track champ Robbie Reed by about four car lengths to earn the Pitts Homes USRA Modified feature win.
Johnson started on the pole and was never seriously threatened, until Reed cut into the margin late. It was Johnson’s second feature win of the season.
Reed’s runner-up finish was more than enough to earn him the track championship. He began the night 27 points ahead of Jason Pursley and Pursley pulled off the track about halfway through the feature.
Reed posted seven top-five finishes, including one feature win during the season.