WHEATLAND, Mo. — There’s nothing better than a weekend close to home for Dillon McCowan and his team, evidenced by a trip to victory lane Friday night at Lucas Oil Speedway.
McCowan, on a break from the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series where he’s a Rookie of the Year contender, led all 30 laps and hold off Tony Jackson Jr. of Lebanon on Night 1 of the Iconic Apparel 12th annual Ron Jenkins Memorial Presented by Rugged Radios.
“I always enjoy coming to race with Ernie (MLRA director Ernie Leftwich) and the MLRA crew at this beautiful facility,” said McCowan, who earned $5,000 for the win on a night that he set fast qualifying time and won his heat race. “It’s an awesome track and we’ll go at it again tomorrow.”
McCowan, 22, stood out in a hard-fought battle with Jackson, who applied constant pressure throughout. The Urbana driver eventually made it three straight wins on his home track, where he swept the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series CMH Diamond Nationals in mid-July.
Since those back-to-back wins, McCowan had some eventful ups and downs on the national tour, including destroying the Diamond Nationals-winning ride in a frightening flip that took him over the wall at the North-South 100 in Florence, Ky.
The team just completed a new Longhorn Race Car earlier in the day Friday at the shop in Urbana.
“I just have to thank my guys for working so hard, so many hours to get this car ready. We finished it about 3 o’clock this afternoon,” he said.
McCowan zipped to the lead at the start and already led by nearly one second when Ryan Gustin slowed to bring out caution before lap two could be completed.
McCowan was able to hold a consistent lead of about a half-second over Jackson, the MLRA points leader, as the 30-lap race neared the halfway mark with Chase Junghans another three seconds behind in third.
Lapped traffic proved a challenge for McCowan on lap 17 as McCowan brushed the wall in turn four, allowing Jackson to close in. One lap later, caution No. 3 slowed the action as fourth-running Cade Dillard came to a halt in turn four.
McCowan hung on after jumping the turn-two cushion after the restart and was a half-second in front of Jackson as a fourth caution flew on lap 20. Chris Simpson had climbed from seventh to third with Junghans fourth.
It was a two-car race the rest of the way as the race remained under green. McCowan was able to hang on and pick up a third straight victory at the track about a half-hour from home.
“I could tell Tony was back there,” McCowan said. “My right-rear tire never fired. I hated to see those cautions come out. I could not get a run going and we were hanging on for dear life. Hopefully we can make it a little better for tomorrow.”
Jackson said while he could pressure McCowan, he never got a decent chance to make a pass.
“Dillon did exactly what he needed to do; he did a really good job,” Jackson said. “It was a fun, good race. He might have pushed a couple of times and I wasn’t really in a position to make a move on him at that point. But we had a good speed for it being a brand-new car, the first night out.”
Simpson was third with Junghans fourth and Terry Phillips rallying from 10th to fifth.
Michael Muskrat emerged from a blizzard of caution flags to claim the Hickamo Super Stocks feature, beating Tony Anglin by .169 seconds.
JC Newell came all the way from 17th to victory lane in the 20-lap POWRi Midwest Mods feature, taking the lead from Logan Roark with three laps remaining.
The finish:
Feature – 1. 8M-Dillon McCowan[1]; 2. 56JR-Tony Jackson Jr[2]; 3. 32S-Chris Simpson[7]; 4. 18J-Chase Junghans[5]; 5. 75-Terry Phillips[10]; 6. 25-Chad Simpson[20]; 7. 43-Derrick Stewart[4]; 8. 1X-Aaron Marrant[23]; 9. 11G-Gordy Gundaker[18]; 10. 11H-Jeff Herzog[6]; 11. 23-Joe Chalmers[11]; 12. 12-Scott Crigler[12]; 13. 11T-Trevor Gundaker[17]; 14. 8-Matthew Larson[14]; 15. 4-JC Wyman[19]; 16. 78S-Steve Stultz[24]; 17. (DNF) 1T-Tucker Cox[21]; 18. (DNF) 44-Cole Wells[16]; 19. (DNF) 97-Cade Dillard[8]; 20. (DNF) 15L-Payton Looney[13]; 21. (DNF) 50C-Kayden Clatt[3]; 22. (DNF) 35D-Dylan Sillman[15]; 23. (DNF) 21-Billy Moyer Sr[22]; 24. (DNF) 19R-Ryan Gustin[9]
