WHEATLAND, Mo. — After struggling to 25th place in Friday’s opener, Kyle Strickler turned it around in a big way Saturday night at the 16th annual USMTS Slick Mist Show-Me Shootout Presented by Foley Equipment.
Strickler, the veteran from Mooresville, N.C., captured the finale of the weekend doubleheader at Lucas Oil Speedway. Starting eighth, Strickler took the lead from Tanner Mullens on lap 41 and prevailed in the 50-lap main event over Jim Chisholm for a $5,000 pay day.
Strickler, who’s driven late models in the past including a podium finish at the Show-Me 100 at Lucas Oil Speedway in 2020, was ecstatic about his rebound from a night earlier.
“This is just awesome,” Strickler said in victory lane. “I’ve run second in the Show-Me (100) and to win a USMTS race here is awesome. This is a beautiful facility. Everybody said the race track is hard to get ahold of here, I just had to start with the complete wrong set-up on the thing.
“Tomorrow’s my birthday. This will make the long trip home a lot easier. Man, there ain’t nothing like a win to turn things around. I’m getting old. I turn 42 tomorrow. I was really trying to manage my tires and I think I did a really good job of being patient on the starts and not put myself in a bad position.”
The race had a rough beginning that required patience from the contenders as there were two cautions before two official laps could be completed. Reece Solander was credited with leading the first lap with Kyle Brown in second.
Mullens, looking for a weekend sweep, moved into second on lap five as the race began to get some rhythm under green, but was 1.5 seconds behind Solander when the event’s third caution stopped the momentum again.
The restart saw Mullens roar to the lead, going past Solander on the outside coming off turn two. Mullens extended his margin to one second by lap 15 with Solander in front of eighth-starting Kyle Strickler and Brown.
The leaders caught lapped traffic by lap 19 just as the fourth caution came out as Mullens led Solander and Strickler. Seven cars piled up in turn one on the restart, spinning due to fluid laid down by the car of sixth-running Sean Gaddis.
Following the lengthy delay to clean up the fluid, Mullens and Strickler broke away after the green to lead the field by about 10 car lengths. Mullens’ advantage over Strickler was 1.1 seconds by lap 30 with Solander another 2.4 seconds behind in third. By lap 35, the leaders were dealing with slower traffic and Mullens was maintaining his advantage as the laps clicked away.
But suddenly Strickler came to life, cutting the gap to one-half second by lap 38 with Chisholm having moved into third to make it a three-car battle.
Strickler wrestled the lead away with a slider coming out of turn four on lap 41. Chisholm took second away from Mullens on lap 43, but was a half-second behind Strickler with six to go and couldn’t make up any ground.
Strickler held on from there, beating Chisholm by .895 seconds with USMTS season championship leader Rodney Sanders third after starting 23rd. Mullens settled for fourth with Tyler Wolff fifth.
Chisholm, who swept the Show-Me Shootout a year ago en route to the series championship, was pleased with finishes of third and second on back-to-back nights.
“A really good weekend for us as a team. We can’t complain at all,” Chisholm said. “Congratulations to Kyle. He drove around us early and drove away with it. We probably took it a little too easy, early. We fell back a few spots, but it’s all about not getting over your head. I’m super proud of my whole team.”
Sanders, who was unable to complete his heat race due to a flat tire, salvaged a podium finish after the rough start to his night.
“We struggle early in the night here,” Sanders said. “We were so bad in the heat and the B-Main. I just have to thank all my guys. It would be so easy to get down and take your confidence away. We were thrashing, just trying to get something going. It was a good team effort and a good rebound.”
Other feature winners on Saturday night night were Trevor Drake (Clear Creek Golf Cars USRA B-Mods), Tyler Wolff (Hermitage Lumber Late Models) and Mason Beck (O’Reilly Auto Parts USRA Stock Cars).
The finish:
Feature – 1. 8-Kyle Strickler[8]; 2. 24C-Jim Chisholm[7]; 3. 20-Rodney Sanders[23]; 4. 02-Tanner Mullens[4]; 5. 4W-Tyler Wolff[14]; 6. 5-Reece Solander[2]; 7. 21K-Kyle Brown[1]; 8. 58X-Gary Christian[26]; 9. 25-Joe Chisholm[24]; 10. 22C-Cole Campbell[13]; 11. 1B-Bobby Williams[20]; 12. 38C-Jason Pursley[9]; 13. 55H-AJ Hoff[22]; 14. 91-Joe Duvall[10]; 15. 10-Dayton Pursley[19]; 16. 2SS-Mark Smith[11]; 17. 33S-Ben Stockton[18]; 18. 15G-Geoff Lary[12]; 19. 2G-Troy Girolamo[27]; 20. 75-Terry Phillips[17]; 21. 10B-Brandon Givens[3]; 22. 87-Darron Fuqua[15]; 23. 22H-Dustin Hodges[5]; 24. 3B-Nic Bidinger[25]; 25. 7-Sean Gaddis[6]; 26. 712-Trevor Hughes[21]; 27. 71-Chad Melton[16]
