WHEATLAND, Mo. — Brandon Davis made it four straight Summit United States Modified Touring Series wins, using a pass with two laps remaining to overtake race-long leader Jim Chisholm for a $5,000 payday Friday night at Lucas Oil Speedway.
Davis’ Night 1 victory the 17th annual Slick Mist USMTS Shootout Presented by Foley Equipment was a thriller in which Chisholm nearly took it wire-to-wire for 40 laps.
“I just sent it in three and said I’m either going to hit the tack and take off or he’s gonna pull away from me,” Davis said of the decisive moment, with the white flag in sight.
Chisholm beat Rodney Sanders to the lead at the drop off the green and set the early pace. Chisholm built a five-car-length lead by lap eight over Sanderson with Brandon Davis settling into third and Tyler Davis fourth.
The event’s first caution appeared on lap 13 when Chase Sigg hit the wall in turn three. After the restart, Tyler Davis cruised into second behind Chisholm with Sanders in third.
That’s how it stayed until lap 23 when caution No. 2, for a multi-car spin in turn two, slowed the action. Chisholm’s lead at the time was .569 seconds over Tyler Davis. Caution was out again two laps after the restart for debris as Chisholm led a 1.2-second lead over Brandon Davis.
Chisholm’s lead was down to a car length by lap 29 as Brandon Davis closed in from the inside line. Those two continued to run less than a half-second apart as the laps clicked by, Chisholm night on the track and Davis in the slow groove.
Davis, 35, made a drive out of turn four to pull alongside the leader on lap 37, but was unable to inch past. After repeating the bid for several consecutive laps, Davis was able to made the decisive pass with a dive on lap 39 into turn three.
“Jim knows where I am and he wasn’t defending too much, so I just sent it into three,” Brandon Davis said.
Davis held on to take the win over Wolff by .283 seconds with Chisholm fading to third on the final lap.
“Brandon Davis, I appreciate running him clean,” Wolff said. “I messed up a few times as I’m sure I wasn’t very good coming off bottom going to the top. We just stayed after it. We were close. I’m not gonna complain.”
Chisholm, 23, was philosophical about barely missing his fourth USMTS win of the season.
“I’ve got to congratulate Brandon. He’s the class of the field right now and it shows,” Chisholm said. “I kind of expected him to slide himself and I felt we’d have a chance to do the same. Just misjudged the situation a little bit and came out third.”
Sanders was fourth and Tanner Mullens fifth.
There were 45 Modifieds on hand for the USMTS portion. Jim Chisholm set fast qualifying time with a lap of 16.831 seconds.
(Jon Sheets) Clear Creek Golf Cars USRA B-Mods and Jaylen Wettengel (O’Reilly USRA Stock Cars).
The finish:
Feature – 1. 50III-Brandon Davis[3]; 2. 4W-Tyler Wolff[8]; 3. 24C-Jim Chisholm[2]; 4. 20-Rodney Sanders[1]; 5. 02-Tanner Mullens[6]; 6. 65-Tyler Davis[4]; 7. 21K-Kyle Brown[9]; 8. 75-Terry Phillips[15]; 9. 3B-Nic Bidinger[10]; 10. 22C-Cole Campbell[19]; 11. 15W-Wyatt Gaggero[11]; 12. 7G-Gabe Hodges[7]; 13. 1B-Bobby Williams[16]; 14. 99L-Steve Lavasseur[22]; 15. 97JR-Landon Volkman[13]; 16. 58X-Gary Christian[14]; 17. 22H-Dustin Hodges[17]; 18. 54T-Matthew Day[21]; 19. 5-Reece Solander[5]; 20. 10B-Brandon Givens[27]; 21. 55H-AJ Hoff[28]; 22. 21-Jacob Potter[24]; 23. 91-Joe Duvall[26]; 24. 96-Chad Lyle[20]; 25. 8S-Tony Jackson Jr[23]; 26. 38C-Jason Pursley[18]; 27. 18JR-Chase Sigg[12]; 28. 2-Tyler Stevens[25]
