ALBION, Neb. — Winning a dogfight of a race at Boone County Raceway, the debut event for the Lucas Oil American Sprint Car Series presented by the MAVTV Motorsports Network at the high-banked Nebraska oval, went to Matt Covington on Friday night.
Covington’s first win of the season, the win is the 15th time the Missile Motorsports/A-Rock Material No. 95 has parked in victory lane with the National Tour and first in the state of Nebraska.
“This season has been up and down so far; I can’t even describe how much we needed this win, especially for Matthew [Howard]. He works his butt off on this car. I feel like he’s worked way harder than he even had to last year, only to not have the same kind of results, and that’s tough,” stated Covington. “We’ve had a couple podiums, but this is a major boost for us. Luckily, the injury to my ribs isn’t hurting me in the car anymore. Not going to be doing pushups or bench press anytime soon, but I’m back to where I feel good in the car, and I feel like you could see that tonight.”
Chasing f Jason Martin from the start, Covington began moving his line to encompass the cushion at either end of the three-eighths-mile oval. Working into traffic at the race’s mid-point, Martin stuck the bottom with slower cars allowing Matt to close the gap.
On lap 15, Martin went three wide with traffic, only to have the top clear for Covington through the third and fourth turns. With momentum off the fourth turn, Covington took the point on
I sent it to the top, and it felt good, so I kind of maintained at first then started working on closing in on Jason [Martin], and once we got into traffic, I was able to get positioned and make the run, with a line that he wasn’t working yet,” Covington said.
Vacating the hub, Jason began fighting back. Working all the way into the cushion as Covington cheated the top line, the fight for the lead was on with four laps to run. Pulling the trigger on the slide job, Martin shot back to the point, but the caution would come out before the lap could be completed.
The point fell back to Matt Covington, who went unchallenged to a .501-second margin at the finish. Jason Martin in second was followed by Blake Hahn, who made the last-second pass on Garet Williamson. The two were separated by .033 seconds at the line. Brandon Anderson completed the top five.
The finish:
Feature (25 Laps): 1. 95-Matt Covington[4]; 2. 36-Jason Martin[2]; 3. 52-Blake Hahn[10]; 4. 24-Garet Williamson[3]; 5. 55B-Brandon Anderson[1]; 6. 2C-Wayne Johnson[7]; 7. 2J-Zach Blurton[6]; 8. 14-Joey Danley[9]; 9. 13V-Seth Brahmer[18]; 10. 1X-Tim Crawley[5]; 11. 10-Landon Britt[8]; 12. 45X-Kyler Johnson[19]; 13. 187-Landon Crawley[17]; 14. 17B-Ryan Bickett[11]; 15. 91-Brandon Stevenson[15]; 16. 10P-Dylan Postier[20]; 17. 48-Taylor Forbes[16]; 18. 2-Dylan Opdahl[21]; 19. 10X-Lincoln Drewis[13]; 20. 36X-Rick Hansen[14]; 21. 91K-Ryan Kitchen[22]; 22. 23-Seth Bergman[12]