WHEATLAND, Mo. — Joel Myers Jr. continued a successful trek through mid-America with a dominant victory as the Rod End Supply “Road to the Hockett” kicked off Saturday night at Lucas Oil Speedway.
The 20-year-old Myers started on the pole and led all the way to capture the POWRi Winged 410 Sprint feature win, worth $5,000, and getting a leg up in the four-race series that leads to an open-wheel crown jewel in September.
Myers led all 25 laps to outduel 10th-starting Landon Crawley for the POWRi 410 Sprint feature. Myers also won at 36 Speedway in the division on Friday night.
Myers led Marcus Thomas as the front-row starters set the early pace with Miles Paulus going from sixth to third, before a red flag brought action to a half as Jack Potter rolled his car onto its side in turn one.
The restart saw Paulus continue his charge as he drove into second with Thomas fading quickly to 10th. Meanwhile, Myers was pulling away, opening a 2.2-second lead over Paulus by lap nine.
Paulus cut into the lead as Myers battled lapped traffic, pulling within 1.3 seconds by lap 15. One lap later, Landon Crawley completed a slider to get around Paulus for second, but that allowed Myers to extend his lead to two seconds with just six to go.
Myers continued to sail from there, beating Crawley by 2.9 seconds at the finish.
“This is a testament to the (crew) guys busting their butts,” Myers said. “I had a driver error on Tuesday (at Fremont Speedway) and it destroyed a race car. They kept their heads high and build a whole new race car. This weekend was really good.”
Myers said hitting his marks consistently in lapped traffic kept him in good shape over the final half of the race.
“They really hit it on the race track tonight,” Myers said. “It had a bottom, a middle and a top. I’m glad they decided not to re-work it. A big goal this weekend was to work on decision making in lapped traffic because that’s what wins races.”
Xavier Doney rallied from eighth to third with Paulus settling for fourth and Nixa’s Kyle Bellm was fifth.
Other winners in the opener of the “Road to the Hockett” series were Jack Wagner (POWRi WAR Sprints) and Peyton White (POWRi/IMCA WOW 305 Sprints). The series points champ after the four races in the POWRi 410 Winged Springs and POWRi WAR will receive an automatic bid into this fall’s 16th annual Jesse Hockett-Daniel McMillin Memorial, Sept. 17-19.
The finish:
Feature – 1. 19-Joel Myers Jr[1]; 2. 12X-Landon Crawley[10]; 3. 74-Xavier Doney[8]; 4. 2-Miles Paulus[6]; 5. 21D-Kyle Bellm[5]; 6. 5-Ryder McCutcheon[4]; 7. 8N-Dylan Bloomfield[17]; 8. 52-Blake Hahn[9]; 9. 51B-Joe B Miller[21]; 10. 31-Kameron Key[20]; 11. 97-Scotty Milan[7]; 12. 79X-Gage Montgomery[16]; 13. 23R-Sean Rayhall[12]; 14. 10G-Marcus Thomas[2]; 15. 19H-Kaleb Johnson[15]; 16. 3-Ayrton Gennetten[22]; 17. 9$-Kyle Clark[18]; 18. 11-Roger Crockett[3]; 19. 74N-Natalie Doney[11]; 20. 23-Seth Bergman[19]; 21. 3N-Jake Neuman[14]; 22. 11F-Colton Fisher[23]; 23. 15-Jack Potter[13]
