WHEATLAND, Mo. — Tanner Mullens took command just past the halfway mark and dominated the rest of the way to earn the crown at the United States Modified Touring Series King of America XV on Saturday night at Lucas Oil Speedway.
“I just can’t believe it, man,” Mullens said after claiming the $15,000 victory in a race that eluded him a year ago – when he faded at about the same time he began to dominate this time.
Mullens, of Wichita, Kansas, beat Reece Solander by 2.5 seconds. Gabe Hodges, who like his teammate Solander won preliminary night features, finished third for a strong showing by the Hodges Brothers Racing team.
Mullens sailed around race-long leader Tyler Stevens on lap 35 and that was all she wrote. He was up to the challenge on multiple restarts the rest of the way, but wound up pulling away.
Mullens said he was motivated by his failure to close the King of America a year ago, when he pushed too hard in the first half of the race and his tires went away.
“That’s about all I thought about,” Mullens said of last year’s failure to close after leading 40 laps. “Tyler got out there and Reece set the pace. I tried to be as patient as I could. Once I got by Reece, I kind of maintained and then I knew it was about time to get going.”
The feature started with 10 rows, three wide and it was Stevens setting the early pace ahead of Solander with Tyler Davis third. Stevens was able to carve out a .696-second lead over Davis through 10 laps.
Tanner Mullens moved from ninth to fourth by lap 12 and the top four were separated by 1.5-seconds. Davis continued to ride the high side and maintained a lead of just under one second after 20 laps.
Caution on lap 24 eliminated Stevens’ 1.2-second lead over Davis with Mullens in third. Mullens took over second on the restart and wasted no time pressuring Stevens for the lead as the race approached the midpoint.
Just one lap past halfway, another caution flew, taking away a .901-second lead for Stevens. On the restart, Stevens staved off Mullens – but only briefly. Finally, on lap 35, Mullens went around Stevens on the outside in turn two for the first lead change.
Mullens took off from there and distanced himself from Stevens by a half-second by lap 40. Mullens’ lead stood at .801 seconds when a lap-45 caution bunched the field with 15 to go, but he had a terrific restart and extended the lead to one-second over Davis in just two laps.
One more caution, on lap 54, erased Mullens’ race-high 1.7-second lead. That gave Davis, Solander and Stevens, running second, third and fourth, one more shot at running down the leader.
Mullens quickly dashed their hopes. With a flawless restart, the 33-year-old dominated the rest of the way and prevailed by 2.5 seconds over Solander.
Cody King took the lead halfway through the 30-lap Clear Creek Golf Cars USRA B-Mod feature and held off Jon Sheets for the $3,000 win.
Sheets and King started on the front row and they ran 1-2 much of the race. King forged his way around Sheets out of turn four as the duo were mixed in with lapped traffic to complete lap 15.
King, who won Friday’s preliminary feature, stretched his lead to 1.2 seconds by lap 20. As the race continued its green-flag run, King picked his way through lapped cars to extend his margin to 1.5 seconds before a lap-23 caution flew.
King went on to beat Sheets by .657 seconds. Mike Striegel was third with Chad Clancy fourth and Waylon Dimmitt fifth.
Shayne Bailey passed race-long leader Johnny Fennewald on the final lap to grab the $3,000 prize in the O’Reilly Auto Parts USRA Stock Cars feature.
Fennewald had led the first 29 laps, but Bailey was breathing down his neck over the final laps. Bailey made the winning pass down the backstretch for the win, with Fennewald fading to fourth and Jeffrey Abbey capturing second.
Jaylen Wettengel rallied into third with Fennewald and Mason Martin rounding out the top five.
The finish:
Feature – 1. 02-Tanner Mullens[9]; 2. 5-Reece Solander[1]; 3. 7G-Gabe Hodges[4]; 4. 20-Rodney Sanders[10]; 5. 50III-Brandon Davis[5]; 6. 21K-Kyle Brown[16]; 7. 65-Tyler Davis[2]; 8. 87H-Harley Dais[20]; 9. 2SS-Mark Smith[27]; 10. 65X-Carlos Ahumada Jr[29]; 11. 24C-Jim Chisholm[11]; 12. 127-Paden Phillips[14]; 13. 33Z-Zack VanderBeek[28]; 14. 712-Trevor Hughes[17]; 15. 2S-Stormy Scott[7]; 16. 2-Tyler Stevens[3]; 17. 58X-Gary Christian[15]; 18. 56-Shadren Turner[19]; 19. 75-Terry Phillips[13]; 20. 10M-Talan Willis[6]; 21. 25C-Joe Chisholm[18]; 22. 87-Darron Fuqua[21]; 23. 16JR-Dustin Henigan[12]; 24. 91-Joe Duvall[25]; 25. 15W-Wyatt Gaggero[24]; 26. 17-Henry Chambers[22]; 27. 55H-AJ Hoff[26]; 28. G17-Fito Gallardo[23]; 29. 16H-Chris Henigan[8]
