BENTON, Mo. — One hour north of Benton Speedway sits Ste. Genevieve, Mo. — home to the DIRTcar Summit Racing Equipment Modified Nationals’ newest feature winner, Damian Kiefer.
Kiefer, 26, swept the night at the Missouri oval by setting quick time in qualifying, winning his heat and leading all 25 laps of the feature to get his first Summit Modified win.
At the drop of the green flag, Kiefer used his outside-front-row starting position to rip around Hunt Gossum and lead Lap 1.
On Lap 10, the race’s first caution spawned the first restart with Gossum sitting right behind Kiefer’s No. 0. Kiefer continued his strong evening with a good restart, hitting the cushion and surging down the backstretch to pull away from the field.
Kiefer went on to survive every following restart and lead every lap in the 25-lap main event to pick up the win, becoming the 90th different driver ever to win a Summit Modified event.
“It means the world to me to finally win one of these Summer Nationals races,” Kiefer said. “I’ve been going to these since I was a kid with my dad and watching him race against the best. And to be able to compete against the best tonight, we felt really good and it’s quite an accomplishment to finally get one of these off the checklist. Our car was super balanced there; it’s been really balanced the last six weeks. The race car doesn’t bobble, and it just doesn’t get tight. I can do just about anything I want and it’s really fun to drive.”
Justin Haley finished second, Zeke McKenzie was third, Gossum was fourth, and Austin Rettig rounded out the top five by advancing 13 positions.
The finish:
Feature (25 Laps): 1. 0-Damian Kiefer[2]; 2. 99-Justin Haley[3]; 3. 24-Zeke McKenzie[4]; 4. 99G-Hunt Gossum[1]; 5. 94R-Austin Rettig[18]; 6. 77-Ray Bollinger[6]; 7. J82-Treb Jacoby[7]; 8. 14C-Rick Conoyer[13]; 9. 21B-Hunter Breland[10]; 10. 6-Ryan Fowler[17]; 11. 9-Ken Schrader[19]; 12. 27G-Jason Garver[9]; 13. 66-Chris Hall[12]; 14. 74S-Chris Sieweke[22]; 15. (DNF) 17-Mikey Wilson[16]; 16. (DNF) 3G-Haleigh Gross[8]; 17. (DNF) 12-Kaleb Jones[14]; 18. (DNF) 98-Joshua Hawkins[5]; 19. (DNF) 94C-Mark Clary[15]; 20. (DNF) 84G-Gary Gross[11]; 21. (DNS) 45-Jeremy Conner; 22. (DNS) 5-Hayden Conner
