WHEATLAND, Mo. — Kris Jackson had a rough finish to the opening half of Lucas Oil Speedway’s unique Clear Creek Golf Cars USRA B-Mod Twin 20s on Saturday night, but turned misfortune into a trip to victory lane.
Taking advantage of a full-field invert after finishing 24th and last in the opener, Jackson led all the way to win the second 20-lapper after Jon Sheets won the opener in a thriller.
As 104 cars checked into the pits on Mickey Fleehart Memorial Fan Appreciation Night, other feature winners were Robbe Ewing (Hermitage Lumber Late Models), Cole Campbell (Arctic Food Equipment USRA Modifieds), Kenny Carroll (Hickamo Super Stocks) and Chad Eickleberry (Show-Me Vintage Racers).
Jackson spun and hit a tractor tire guarding the infield in turn two with five laps to go in the first feature. He said it left the car damaged and, after making a couple of laps, he pulled off to await a fresh start in the second race.
When fans voted to invert the entire field, it put Jackson up front. He car was good enough to lead all 20 laps as he beat Dawson David, who also started on the front row after he was 23rd in the first feature.
“I was just trying too hard in the first one,” Jackson said, noting that he and Colson Kirk got together battling for position, leading to his spin and contact with the tractor tire. “This thing drives like a square-body truck after hitting that tire. I had a lot of play in the wheel and it wasn’t fun to drive, but I had enough track that it was OK.”
Jackson earned $1,000 for his second Pitts Homes and Realty Weekly Racing Series win of the season.
Sheets made a late pass to win the first 20-lapper, overtaking JC Morton with two laps to go. While that win was worth $1,000 to Sheets, it didn’t do him any good for the second feature as fans voted during a 10-minute break to invert the entire finishing order.
“We can’t get any worse than last year,” Sheets said during the break. “We won the first feature and we wrecked out on the first lap of the second one. So if we finish, we’ll be ahead of the game.”
Sheets added that if he was sitting in the stands, he would have voted for the full-field invert as well.
Jackson set the pace as action resumed, opening a one-second lead over David that held steady over the first 10 laps. Of the high finishers in the opener, J.T. Carroll was running 13th by the midpoint with Morton 18th and Sheets 22nd.
With laps quickly clicking by as the raced remained caution-free, Jackson couldn’t shake clear of David as Casey Thomas ran nearly three seconds behind in third. The first caution didn’t appear until lap 16, with Jackson leading David by .778 seconds.
Jackson had a good restart and held on over the final four laps to pick up the win, beating David by 1.4 seconds at the checkers. Thomas finished third with Trevor Drake fourth and Chad Clancy, who started 14th, taking fifth.
Carroll wound up 12th, Morton was 13th and Sheets, after scraping the wall early in the race in traffic, wound up 20th.
“That’s a case of a full-field invert. Nothing that anybody did wrong,” Sheets said. “You just get so bottle-necked right there in the middle that you’ve got guys dicing and changing lanes and I didn’t see the lane change coming.”
Morton took command at the start of the opener with Kirk and Carroll battling behind him. As those two swapped second, Morton built a 1.1-second lead by lap 10. Morton was two seconds clear when caution flew on lap 16 when Kris Jackson spun while running fifth.
Sheets took advantage of the restart by hopping to the high groove and passing Morton for the lead on lap 18. They were running side by side taking the white flag, with Sheets .159 in front at the start-finish line, when another caution came out.
Sheets took the one-lap sprint for the win, his fourth of the season, beating Morton by a half-second. Andy Bryant was third and Carroll fourth.
