TULSA, Okla. — He has been in contention, led laps, and been within striking distance in the last 10 years, but over and over, Jonathan Beason has been denied his third career Golden Driller.
That changed Saturday night as the Broken Arrow shoe led all 55 laps of the Hyper Racing Outlaw Non-Wing A-Feature.
“This one is way shinier than my other ones,” chuckled Beason. “We should have had a couple more in the last ten years, but the car was perfect. I’d been bitching about it all week, and the guys finally told me to shut up and drive it, so I don’t know what they did, but that was the best car we had all week.”
Asked about his run at the front, Beason said, “It was tough. I don’t race that much anymore, so to get out there and lead is one thing, and to do it all 55 laps is even tougher, but that first start, Tanner kind of beat me, and I figured I better do something better, then had to do it three times, but the car felt good, and once I felt the bottom latch up, I knew I was going to have to stay there.”
Cruising away while the fight from second back raged on for nearly the entire race, Beason held on through several restarts and was able to get away each time. Chasing through the final half of the feature, Jeffrey Newell was able to get close to the Factory Fourteen No. 14b, but could not overtake, resulting in his second runner-up run of the night.
“Anytime you walk out of this building after starting an A-Feature, I wouldn’t call it satisfied, but it is gratifying. Everybody works so damn hard to get to this, and you have to learn to be grateful to be standing down here on the podium,” said Newell of the runner-up finish.
Making a massive run through the field from 20th, Chris Andrews wheeled a stock engine to a third-place finish. Kyle Spence made it 13th to fourth with Cash Lovenburg in fifth.
The Hyper Racing Tulsa Shootout wrapped up with an astounding 2,010 confirmed entries out of the 2,079 received across all six divisions.
Among them were 851 drivers from 43 states and six countries competing in 433 individual races, totaling 4,078 green-flag laps. The total car count in the SageNet Center was 1,155.
The finish:
Feature (55 Laps): 1. 14B-Jonathan Beason[1]; 2. 1J-Jeffrey Newell[6]; 3. 14A-Chris Andrews[20]; 4. 22Z-Kyle Spence[13]; 5. 21-Cash Lovenburg[8]; 6. 39-Russ Disinger[10]; 7. 21S-Steven Snyder Jr[19]; 8. 86-Daison Pursley[5]; 9. 81-Frank Flud[4]; 10. 10Y-Jett Yantis[15]; 11. 29B-Cory Brown[11]; 12. 05-Kris Carroll[16]; 13. 84C-Ty Gibbs[22]; 14. 44-Jake Andreotti[14]; 15. 10J-Emerson Axsom[3]; 16. 87C-Mack Leopard[12]; 17. 112-Dylan Kadous[24]; 18. 71K-Gavin Miller[18]; 19. 11J-Ryder McCutcheon[9]; 20. 95B-James Roselli[17]; 21. 81B-Braxton Flatt[7]; 22. (DNF) 2J-Gaige Weldon[23]; 23. (DNF) 32TT-Tanner Thorson[2]; 24. (DNF) 55X-Trevor Cline[21]
