WHEATLAND, Mo. — It was a memorable Thursday night for a first-time Summit United States Modified Touring Series winner as Gabe Hodges celebrated a win at the King of America XV at Lucas Oil Speedway.
Hodges, of Lebo, Kansas, regained the lead with eight laps remaining and held on to take the $3,000 win on the first of two preliminary nights of the 15th annual event.
The 23-year-old prevailed on a night that saw 66 USMTS drivers check into the pits, with 176 entries across three divisions.
“I’ve really struggled these last few weeks,” Hodges said. “We put together some good finishes at the beginning of the year and made some changes to the car. We were pretty good in practice (Wednesday) night. I’m glad we figured something out here.”
The top nine USMTS drivers will take their best of the two and will be locked directly into Saturday night’s three-wide start championship finale, which will pay $15,000 to win and $1,500 to start.
Hodges started outside of row two and was able to catch and pass pole-starting Tyler Davis for the lead on lap four. Hodges was leading by .686 seconds when the first caution slowed the action on lap nine. Reece Solander rolled into second by lap 13 and Tanner Mullens, who started 11th, up to third as Hodges continued to lead.
Hodges’ lead was just under one second when caution flew on lap 17 of the 30-lapper. Mullens used the restart to slide his way past Hodges and into the lead to complete lap 18, but Hodges rallied to regain the top spot on lap 22, just before the race’s fourth caution came out to set up an eight-lap shootout.
Mullens lost two positions on the restart as Solander and Tyler Davis advanced to second and third. Hodges was able to hold on as the race remained green, beating Solander, his teammate, by .282 seconds.
“At the beginning the top was really good and I had something to lean on,” Hodges said. “Later in the race, with 10 or 12 to go, I seen Tanner’s nose down here on the start and on the other end he kind of got around me. I thought I beat him back to the line and I didn’t drive it down deep enough to slide him.
“On that restart, I knew he couldn’t run the top down here and I tried to take advantage there. It got too dirty up there and there was nothing to lean on. I kind of got down in that black groove and it cleaned up real good. We have a really good race car and really good engine under the hood.”
Davis finished third with Rodney Sanders rallying from 20th to fourth and Brandon Davis in fifth.
Kris Jackson led all 20 laps, holding off Jon Sheets, for the Clear Creek Golf Cars USRA B-Mod feature win.
Jackson grabbed the early lead with Sheets giving chase, staying within a half-second through the first five laps with third-place Tim Karrick nearly two seconds behind the top duo.
Jackson’s lead was just .229 seconds by lap 10 with the first caution appearing a lap later for a spin in the back of the field. Karrick took away second after the restart, but Sheets regained it on lap 15.
Jackson was able to open some breathing room as Sheets and Karrick battled. Jackson finished off a wire-to-wire win, finishing .367 seconds in front of Sheets with Karrick third, Josh Cain fourth and Dawson David in fifth.
Third-starting Johnny Fennewald took the lead on lap four and drove away to the O’Reilly Auto Parts USRA Stock Cars feature win.
William Garner, starting outside of the front row, took the lead at the start and held it until Fennewald grabbed it away on lap four. Fennewald opened a 1.4-second lead by the halfway point on lap 10. He continued to set the pace the rest of the way as the race ran caution free and Fennewald prevailed by the same margin over Garner at the checkers.
Sixth-starting Shayne Bailey wound up third with Mason Martin fourth and Jeffrey Abbey taking fifth.
The finish:
Feature – 1. 7G-Gabe Hodges[4]; 2. 5-Reece Solander[8]; 3. 65-Tyler Davis[1]; 4. 20-Rodney Sanders[20]; 5. 50III-Brandon Davis[24]; 6. 10M-Talan Willis[19]; 7. 16-Chris Henigan[3]; 8. 2-Tyler Stevens[7]; 9. 24C-Jim Chisholm[25]; 10. 75-Terry Phillips[9]; 11. 712-Trevor Hughes[27]; 12. 16JR-Dustin Henigan[5]; 13. 25C-Joe Chisholm[26]; 14. 85D-Mark Dotson[10]; 15. 2SS-Mark Smith[21]; 16. 91-Joe Duvall[28]; 17. 15W-Wyatt Gaggero[15]; 18. 21K-Kyle Brown[22]; 19. 3B-Nic Bidinger[18]; 20. 56-Shadren Turner[12]; 21. G17-Fito Gallardo[14]; 22. 38C-Jason Pursley[6]; 23. 99L-Steve Lavasseur[23]; 24. 02-Tanner Mullens[11]; 25. 58X-Gary Christian[17]; 26. 87H-Harley Dais[2]; 27. 2S-Stormy Scott[16]; 28. 7-Al Hejna[13]
