WHEATLAND, Mo. — Chris Simpson polished off a flawless weekend on Saturday night at Lucas Oil Speedway, completing a sweep of the 11th annual Ron Jenkins Memorial.
Simpson backed his Friday-night victory with another Comp Cams Super Dirt Series feature win, this time leading the final 30 of 40 laps, outdistancing Clay Stuckey.
Simpson earned $12,000 for the win, which included a $2,000 bonus courtesy of Mary Jenkins Holt in honor of the late Ron Jenkins, builder and owner of the original Lucas Oil Speedway.
Including a pair of $500 fast-time bonus awards plus a $100 series bonus each night for fast time, Simpson took home $20,200 for the two nights.
“I just want to thank everybody at Lucas Oil and the Jenkins family for the extra money they put up,” Simpson said. “It means a lot. I go to work every day, from 7 until 3:30 and go out and work on my car afterward.
“I don’t do this for a living. To be able to come down here … I’ve had one other week when I brought home $20,000 close to home.”
Daniel Adam beat Simpson to the lead at the start, the first time in two nights that Simpson had not set the pace. Adam rolled away to nearly a one-second lead before Simpson began to reel him in, drawing within .215 seconds by lap 10 with Terry Phillips another 1.2 seconds behind in third.
Simpson took the lead on lap 11, sliding past Adam on the inside coming off turn four. Just five laps later, Simpson had sped away to a two-second command over Adam with Clay Stuckey taking third away from Phillips.
“The top was better. I could see that and he had a pretty good cushion,” Simpson said of Adam’s early lead. “I knew I had to get out there and ride and just follow him. I tried to keep the car a little straighter than he was so I wouldn’t burn up the right rear.”
As action remained caution-free and the track took on rubber, Simpson upped his cushion to 2.4 seconds by the halfway mark on lap 20. Adam was able to cut into the margin a bit, but Simpson continued to sail along with a comfortable margin.
The first caution came on lap 33 as fourth-running Phillips slowed in turn four. That took away Simpson’s 1.8-second lead over Adam with seven to go, putting some mystery into the late stages of the event.
Simpson had a flawless restart and Adam slipped a bit, allowing Stuckey to get into second and R.C. Whitwell went to third. Simpson’s lead was .935 seconds with three to go when Adam slow in turn two with a flat tire, bringing out a caution.
Stuckey said he thought he might have a shot at Simpson the restart, but knew it had to happen quickly.
“I thought I could catch him. There was a second there I was slowly creeping up on him,” Stuckey said. “I maybe had five laps left on my right rear tire. You could tell with about four laps to go that it was done, but with the weekend I’ve had I’ll definitely take second.”
Completing his big weekend, Simpson finished it off after the restart and beat Stuckey by .793 seconds at the finish. Whitwell was third with Cole Wells of Aurora fourth and Mason Oberkramer fifth after starting 14th.
An old pro celebrated in victory lane for the first time in long time as late model legend Bill Frye held off Taylor Carver for the $1,000 Hickamo Super Stocks feature win.
Ninth-starting Emma Davis took over the lead with three leads to go and held on to earn the Show-Me Vintage Racers feature win, her first in her second season of racing with the SMVR.
The finish:
Feature – 1. 32-Chris Simpson[1]; 2. 15S-Clay Stuckey[6]; 3. 7-RC Whitwell[3]; 4. 7W-Cole Wells[7]; 5. 93-Mason Oberkramer[14]; 6. 11T-Trevor Gundaker[5]; 7. 75M-Dillon McCowan[9]; 8. 7J-Ryan Johnson[8]; 9. 15L-Payton Looney[10]; 10. 86-Kyle Beard[15]; 11. 21-Billy Moyer Sr[16]; 12. 11G-Gordy Gundaker[22]; 13. 4G-Bob Gardner[20]; 14. 5-Jon Mitchell[12]; 15. 50C-Kayden Clatt[19]; 16. 66-Eli Ross[17]; 17. 1-BJ Robinson[18]; 18. 2-Charlie Cole[24]; 19. 14M-Morgan Bagley[23]; 20. 75A-Daniel Adam[2]; 21. 8K-Tyler Kuykendall[21]; 22. (DNF) 75-Terry Phillips[4]; 23. (DNF) 1ST-Justin Reed[13]; 24. (DNF) B17-Brandon Ball[11]; 25. (DNF) 15-Shane Stephens[25]
