WHEATLAND, Mo. — A blast from the past returned to MARS DIRTcar victory lane as Terry Phillips took the lead on lap 20 and held it the rest of the, beating Chris Simpson for his 95th career MARS victory – and first since 2017.
The seventh-starting Phillips supplanted Dallon Murty, who had led the first 18 circuits. He withstood two restarts the rest of the way with nobody able to pull alongside the 60-year-old as the laps ticked down.
“I don’t know about having an advantage from being around here, because I suck here normally,” Phillips said in victory lane. “That’s why I’m so excited. I haven’t won a Modified or Late Model race – especially a Late Model – here in a long time.
“We’ve been racing this Late Model a little bit more and kind of feeling it and I’m kind of getting into a rhythm about what we need to change. My crew chief Troy decided to make a call and it worked real well.”
Phillips, 60, was driving a Longhorn chassis for Shawn Mann Motorsports out of Searcy, Ark. He’s focused mostly on his Modified program in recent years, but the latest win for Mann was the team’s third Late Model victory of the season.
“I’m going on a fun tour next year and racing whatever the hell I want,” Phillips said.
Phillips won six MARS championships from 2000-2010 and his 95 career series feature wins are nearly triple the nearest competitor.
Murty started third and had the lead after the opening lap with Tony Jackson Jr. settling into second until lap nine when Terry Phillips got around Jackson. Four laps later, Jackson and Phillips swapped positions again.
That battle behind him allowed Murty to settle into a rhythm up front, leading by nearly one second 15 laps into the event. Phillips regained second on lap 18 and was using lapped traffic to cut into Murty’s margin.
Sure enough, Phillips went to the inside of Murty on lap 20 for the first lead change. By the time the race hit the halfway mark on lap 25, Phillips had opened 1.9-second lead over Murty with Jackson in third.
The first caution flew on lap 28 as MARS points leader Ryan Unzicker, running 17th, tangled with 16th-place Blaze Burwell. Phillips’ lead of nearly two seconds was erased ahead of the restart with 22 laps remaining.
Unzicker was able to make repairs under caution and continue, keeping his championship hopes alive.
Phillips had a solid restart and gradually rebuilt his lead over Murty to nearly two seconds by lap 36. His lead was 2.1 seconds when a lap-40 caution for Scott Crigler’s spin in turn three.
Chris Simpson took over second on the restart with Chase Junghans also getting around Murty.
But Phillips would not be denied, beating Simpson by 1.5 seconds. It was his first MARS win since July 1, 2017 at Salina (Okla.) Highbanks Speedway and his first Late Model win at Wheatland since June 6, 2009 in an MLRA event.
Murty wound up third, Dennis Erb Jr. fourth and Junghans, who won on Friday, slipping late to fifth.
“We’ll take it,” Simpson said of second. “This last little stretch we’ve been consistent. I felt like we didn’t need those cautions. We had harder tires on than they did and once I got rolling, I was good. It just took too long to come back to me. I got to second and just had to ride it out.”
Unzicker meanwhile, finished 19th and that was good enough to hold off Jason Feger for his second series title.
Qualifying saw a track-record-matching lap by Dennis Erb Jr. of Carpentersville, Ill. Erb’s lap of 14.443 seconds in Group A matched Garrett Alberson’s track record of 14.443 set on May 24, 2024 with the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series.
