PEVELY, Mo. – Tyler Nicely put together a dominant performance in the DIRTcar UMP Modified main event on the opening night of the DIRTcar Fall Nationals Friday at Federated Auto Parts Raceway at I-55.
Nicely took the lead on lap four from pole sitter Rick Conoyer and stretched out a huge lead during a long green flag run. While Nicely pulled away, Conoyer, Mike McKinney and Jim Black had a fierce battle for second place as they diced through lapped traffic.
A caution on lap 26 would tighten up the field. Conoyer would give Nicely a brief challenge for the top spot on the first two laps after the restart, but Nicely would stretch it out and would go on to victory finishing almost two seconds ahead of Conoyer.
Conoyer was able to fiend off Jim Black to finish second, Black took third while McKinney finished fourth and Allen Weisser fifth.
Will Krup would charge all the way from the 25th starting spot to finish sixth. Krup had to take a provisional starting spot after a tangle with Danny Ems while battling for the lead in their heat race that sent Krup spinning the wrong direction down the front stretch and into the turn one wall.
Iowa’s Sam Halstead would grab the DIRTcar Pro Late Model victory. Halstead seemed to struggle during qualifying and his heat race, but found the right setup for the feature and charged from the seventh place starting spot to take to the win.
Aaron Heck would lead the early laps, but Halstead got the lead just before half way and dominated the remainder of the feature. Trevor Gundaker would move in and battle with Heck for second and would finish in the second spot with Heck taking third.
Cody Maguire overcame a bad qualifying run in which he got into the wall hard and broke the right front suspension and finished fourth in the feature. Devin McLean would round out the top five.
Trey Harris put on a dominating performance in the DIRTcar Pro Modified division. Harris seemed to be pacing himself during the feature as he had built up a big lead, but Owen Steinkoenig made things interesting late. Steinkoenig chased down Harris and actually passed Harris for the lead with four to go, but the caution flag would come out sending Steinkoenig back second place on the restart.
Harris would pull away on the restart and take the win. Steinkoenig would cross the line in second, but was disqualified during post-race tech. That would move Tim Hancock up to second with Troy Medley taking third, Joel Ortberg fourth and C.J. Springer fifth.
Tony Walker made his first DIRTcar Factory Stock start of the season and would take the win. Trevor Isaak kept the pressure on Walker by using the high side to challenge Walker for the lead. Isaak would settle for second with Terry McCann taking third, Kipp Schaeffer fourth and Jake Hearty fifth.