WHEATLAND, Mo. – Johnny Coats shot from third-to-first with 10 laps remaining and went on to win Saturday night’s O’Reilly Auto Parts Street Stocks feature at Lucas Oil Speedway.
Coats went past James Flood and Toby Ott to take over the lead and didn’t surrender it in the 25-lap headliner on the Big Adventure RV Weekly Racing Series program.
Other feature winners on $5 Night Presented by KY3 included Andy Bryant (Ozark Golf Cars USRA B Mods), Jon Sheets (Pitts Homes USRA Modifieds) and Johnny Fennewald (Warsaw Auto Marine & RV ULMA Late Models).
Coats started sixth and held off runner-up James Flood for his first feature win of the season and deny Flood his second straight feature triumph.
“I was hoping Flood wasn’t getting some hand signals under that (late) caution to go up to the top; it would have been pretty hard to get him if they did. They’re all pretty tough to beat, that’s for sure,” Coats said.
Zach Zeugin drove from a 22nd starting position all the way to third while Toby Ott was fourth and Daniel Deason fifth.
Sheets used a last-lap pass of Robbie Reed in a battle of the two previous Pitts Homes USRA Modified feature winners to take home his second win of season.
Sheets wound up 1.176 seconds in front at the finish. He made the winning drive from the sixth starting position, while Reed started on the outside of row one. The two battled back and forth over the final five laps.
“My car was really good on top,” Sheets said. “I think everybody else was too tight to make it up there and I was free enough to make it happen. He was kind of pinching that off to the wall, so I knew it was gonna have to be a slide job.
“I was pretty confident that we had a better car on top any way. I didn’t know if he could search around and get something found, but with so few laps, he didn’t have time to search. I was pretty confident that we were going to be able to be able to hold onto it.”
Sheets said it’s been fun early in the season.
“It’s awesome. We didn’t really struggle last year, but we struggled to get the wins. So many seconds to Darren (Fuqua). Finally, I kind of feel like we’re the guy, we’re the Darren this year so far, but that can all change tomorrow. We’re gonna go back to the shop and work out butts off.”
Chase Domer finished third with Ryan Middaugh in fourth.
Bryant started up front and stayed there to grab the Ozark Golf Cars USRA B-Mod feature win.
Kris Jackson, who started fifth, finished second with Dan Wheeler third. Neither was a match for Bryant, who earned the pole-position for the feature by going from eighth to first to win his heat race.
Fennewald used a strong run into turn on on a restart with five laps to go, passing Kaeden Cornell and hanging on for the Warsaw Auto Marine & RV ULMA Late Model win.
Fennewald started sixth and worked his way into third by lap 13 and into second one lap later. After the race’s second caution, he got past Cornell and went on for his second feature win of the season.
Cole Henson started on the outside of the front row and led the first eight laps before Cornell moved into the lead. Henson wound up third with Aaron Marrant fourth.