WHEATLAND, Mo. — Tanner Thorson scored an emotional victory in Saturday night’s 16th annual Jesse Hockett-Daniel McMillin Memorial at Lucas Oil Speedway.
The Hockett-McMillin Memorial pays tribute to the legacy of Hockett, from Warsaw, who was a national star in both the winged and non-wing sprint divisions when he lost his life in a shop accident in 2010. Hockett’s cousin and crew chief, Daniel McMillin, was killed in an automobile accident in 2006.
JT Nichols, the tire specialist for Thorson’s JST Motorsports team was a young cousin when Hockett died and dedicated his pursuit of a spot in the sport to Jesse. Thorson, of Broken Arrow, Okla., said he felt a bit of extra pressure to win it for Nichols after earning a Friday preliminary victory.
“I was on myself hard last night night and this morning like, ‘come on, we can do this.’ I’m happy for TJ and his family. They’re down-to-earth people and really good for the sport.
“TJ has been on me. from day one when this came on the schedule, ‘I want to win it, I want to win it.’ I said ‘we’ll win it.'”
Nichols, asked in victory lane what it meant to him, also was emotional. He actually drove one of Hockett’s old winged cars to pace the field on the parade lap.
“This is everything,” Nichols said. “I don’t have words to describe it, but this is the race that we wanted to win. I can barely talk. I’m so proud of Tanner.”
Thorson earned $25,000 for what he called his biggest winged-car victory. While he earned $26,000 for a recent High Limit Racing third-place at Skagit Speedway, this one clearly meant more.
“It’s really cool and it’s always really cool to win with High Limit and all the national tours,” Thorson said. “High Limit is where it’s at.”
Brent Marks out-ran fellow front-row starter Giovanni Scelzi and set the early pace with Thorson settling into second by lap three. Thorson grabbed the lead on a lap-five restart after the race’s first caution.
A multi-car tangle brought out the red flag on lap nine, with Chase Randall and Kasey Jedrzejek both flipping coming out of turn three. Thorson had a one-second lead at the time.
The race settled in after the restart with Thorson opening a 1.6-second lead by lap 15 as Courtney and Peck battled it out for second. Those two got together on lap 19 with Peck taking the worse of the tangle and having to pull into the infield work area.
Just one lap was completed before a Brady Bacon spin brought out caution No. 4. Thorson was able to stretch out his lead again after the restart, leading by more than a second by lap 22.
Thorson’s lead started to shrink with about 10 to go with Courtney closing in on the low side. By lap 30 he was just a couple of car lengths behind the leader with Thorson moving lower on the oval to try and counter his pursuer.
Courtney pulled alongside down the backstretch on lap 34, but Thorson held on and reached the checkers .618 seconds in front of Courtney.
Scelzi was third with Rico Abreu fourth and Marks rounding out the top five.
Thorson said his right-rear tire was caked with mud the last portion of the race and he had a bad vibration, making the car a handful to drive.
“I couldn’t see there for the last 15 laps after that yellow because I blew the wheel-cover off,” Thorson said. “I had a hard time getting grip because (me car) was shaking so hard. Man, hats off to this team.”
Courtney said he just didn’t have enough to get around Thorson.
“Hats off to Tanner and his whole team. They’ve been one of the cars to beat here the last couple of years,” Courtney said. “I felt like we had a chance tonight. It just wasn’t in the cards.”
Courtney also picked up an extra $3,077 for earning the hard-charger award for most cars passed over three nights.
The finish:
Feature (35 Laps): 1. 88-Tanner Thorson[3]; 2. 7BC-Tyler Courtney[6]; 3. 77-Giovanni Scelzi[1]; 4. 24-Rico Abreu[8]; 5. 19-Brent Marks[2]; 6. 1X-Scott Bogucki[5]; 7. 13-Tanner Holmes[10]; 8. 66-Ryan Newton[23]; 9. 87-Aaron Reutzel[9]; 10. 19JR-Joel Myers Jr[14]; 11. 24D-Danny Sams III[7]; 12. 45X-Ashton Torgerson[19]; 13. 42-Sye Lynch[21]; 14. 3-Ayrton Gennetten[20]; 15. 55-Brady Bacon[12]; 16. 26-Justin Peck[4]; 17. 9R-Chase Randall[15]; 18. 31-Scotty Thiel[16]; 19. 74-Xavier Doney[22]; 20. 40-Howard Moore[17]; 21. 57-Cam Sorrels[18]; 22. 11-Roger Crockett[13]; 23. 22M-Rees Moran[24]; 24. 5-Kasey Jedrzejek[11]
