WEST BURLINGTON, Iowa —Tasker Phillips performed a hair-raising pass at the midway point of the feature Thursday night at Eldon Raceway to capture his first Sprint Invaders victory.
Phillips earned $3,000 for his first victory in a 360 sprint car.
Josh Higday led early after inheriting the pole. Ryan Bunton was slated to start on the pole, but an ignition connection issue sent him to the work area, and he started at the rear. The 25-lap event went non-stop on the racy and fast half-mile.
Phillips tucked into the second position followed by Luke Verardi and Colton Fisher. Higday hit his first lapped car on the fifth circuit and appeared to be in control for several laps. Phillips separated himself from the rest of the pack as well, and began slowly reeling in Higday, who was dealing with lapped cars.
On lap 12, Higday hesitated behind a lapper, and Phillips went for it, squeezing between Higday, the lapped car and the wall in turn two. From there it was clean sailing. Fisher nailed down third and began to catch Higday with eighth starting Paul Nienhiser in tow.
The three would run nose to tail the rest of the way. Fisher would make heavy contact with the frontstretch wall with a few laps remaining, breaking his jacob’s ladder. Nienhiser would get by him on lap 24.
Phillips win came by a half lap over Higday, Nienhiser, Fisher and Verardi.
“I saw Higday going into one and he got sideways and so did I,” said Phillips. “I thought we were backing it into the wall, but we made it. It was getting slow in traffic, but it was wide enough to pass. I saw a little bit of an opening between the car and the wall so I took it. There wasn’t really a strategy, I was just giving it hell from there.”
“We found some speed tonight, we just had some trouble in lapped traffic,” said Higday. “Tasker got by us. He was just a little bit better than us in clean air. We were good in the beginning of the race, and from the middle part out, we struggled. It’s just cool to have two Knoxville guys up front.”
“We were pretty good in hot laps,” said Nienhiser. “There was a little driver error in the heat race and that kept us out of the Dash and a little further back than we wanted in the feature. We made some good adjustments. I felt as good as I ever do on a half-mile, which is not my cup of tea. I was pleased with it. We’ll take a third any day. I could tell we were running out of laps. I would have liked to have tried the slider on Higday the last lap, but by the time we got to three and four, as narrow as it was down there, I didn’t have room. I was pretty pleased with our run.”
The finish:
Feature (25 laps): 1. 7TAZ, Tasker Phillips, Pleasantville, IA (3) 2. 1E, Josh Higday, Des Moines, IA (1) 3. 50, Paul Nienhiser, Chapin, IL (8) 4. 11, Colton Fisher, Mediapolis, IA (4) 5. 28, Luke Verardi, Taylorville, IL (2) 6. 99, Bret Tripplett, Lincoln, IL (6) 7. 16, Dustin Clark, Agency, IA (9) 8. 40, Cody Wehrle, Burlington, IA (5) 9. 6R, Ryan Bunton, Morton, IL (17) 10. 7, Tyler Lee, Cedar Rapids, IA (7) 11. 81, Tanner Gebhardt, Burlington, IA (14) 12. 21, Devin Wignall, Altoona, IA (10) 13. 51J, Ryan Jamison, Mediapolis, IA (16) 14. 4x, Chase Richards, Burlington, IA (13) 15. 31, McCain Richards, Burlington, IA (15) 16. 25, Kelly Graham, Hedrick, IA (12) 17. 14, Aidan Zoutte, Knoxville, IA (18) 18. 357, Ryan Edwards, Waverly, IL (11)