QUINCY, Mich. — Throughout the DIRTcar Summer Nationals Late Models season, Mark Whitener has been in the fight for a win late in several features that saw him come up short of the win.
On Thursday night, the Middleburg, Fla., driver did not have to wait any longer for his moment to come with a career night at Michigan’s Butler Motor Speedway by setting the track record, the heat one win, and led 29 of 30 laps in the feature for his first career Hell Tour win.
Whitener began the race from the pole, with week two champion Ryan Gustin and Thursday’s winner Cody Overton going to an early battle for the lead. Gustin ran the bottom lane while Overton used the top side to follow Whitener.
While Gustin led the opening lap, Whitener bested him on Lap 2 by running the cushion through Turns 1-2 to secure the spot.
Whitener and Overton’s running of the cushion proved to outmatch the Todd Cooney Motorsports No. 19r as the Tri-Star Motorsports No. 2 took over second, while the three drivers maintained the top three spots through the first 10 laps.
The Thomson, Ga., driver found momentum at the top and chased down Whitener while Trey Mills passed Gustin for third place through a crossover move from running to the top and sliding under Gustin to take the spot.
Whitener’s lead began to widen as Overton lost momentum off of Turn 4, which gave way for the Jacksonville, Fla., driver to pull up alongside his border-state rival for second place.
As Mills and Overton continued to battle behind the No. 5 Longhorn Chassis, the “Magic Man” became the 120th different Summer Nationals winner in history after completing a dominant track at a new track for him.
“It means a lot,” Whitener said. “This first one’s hard to get. Hopefully, they come easier. Listen, it was tough. We gave it everything we had, we didn’t give up, and we’re in Victory Lane.
“Down at home, the tracks are kinda dirty. The clay is like sandy, so it’s familiar with this Michigan clay, really a little bit of Indiana clay, too. It’s dirty, crummy, and I’m kinda familiar with it. So it kind of fits me as it fits my car’s setup. I ain’t took a shock off my car all night. We’ve been pretty good since we unloaded it, so we left it alone.”
With three races to decide the newest champion of the Summer Nationals, Jason Feger leads by 76 points over Tyler Erb.
The fnish:
Feature (30 Laps): 1. 5-Mark Whitener[1]; 2. 2-Cody Overton[4]; 3. 14JR-Trey Mills[3]; 4. 75-Dillon McCowan[9]; 5. 57-Zack Mitchell[6]; 6. 19R-Ryan Gustin[2]; 7. 1-Tyler Erb[12]; 8. 71R-Rod Conley[5]; 9. 25F-Jason Feger[10]; 10. 42-Chad Finley[8]; 11. 91-Rusty Schlenk[16]; 12. 31M-Tyler Millwood[19]; 13. 17SS-Brenden Smith[13]; 14. 46-Colin Shipley[11]; 15. 4-Travis Stemler[21]; 16. 38-Thomas Hunziker[20]; 17. (DNF) 29-Christian Hanger[22]; 18. (DNF) 41-Mike Vandermark Jr[18]; 19. (DNF) 51-Devin Shiels[15]; 20. (DNF) 07-Rylee Knoll[7]; 21. (DNF) 27-Eric Spangler[17]; 22. (DNF) 21N-Logan Nickerson[14]
