JACKSONVILLE, Ill. — Paul Nienhiser earned a hard-fought victory with the Morrow Brothers Ford MOWA Sprint Car Series on Friday at Jacksonville Speedway.
The three-time series champion started his night with a dominating heat race victory that earned him a spot in the redraw, where he drew the No. 5, to determine his A-Main starting position.
Nienhiser, the owner of a dozen MOWA victories at Jacksonville alone, is always a force to be reckoned with at his home town track. Rolling off from the fifth spot, the Chapin, Illinois driver knew that he had his work cut out if he wanted to find himself atop the podium at race end.
Reigning series champion Will Armitage and fan favorite Joe B. Miller led the field to the green flag in the 25-lap affair. Armitage jumped to the early lead over Miller but quickly the field stopped for a turn one incident that saw Scotty Milan get upside down on the second circuit.
Taking the field back to green, Armitage again got out front with Miller and Chris Urish giving chase. Working lap ten through lapped traffic, Miller quickly overtook Armitage for the top spot. Nienhiser had already moved from his fifth starting spot to third and set his sights on the top two runners. By lap 15, the driver of the No. 9x machine had worked past Armitage for second.
With laps winding down, Nienhiser was able to close the gap between himself and race leader Miller to less than half a second by lap 18. Exiting turn four on lap 19, Nienhiser moved past Miller and never looked back.
Leading the final six laps, Nienhiser was able to add to his fantastic resume with another victory, bringing his career total to 31.
Following Nienhiser to the checkers were Armitage, Miller, Urish and Mario Clouser.
The finish:
Feature (25 Laps): 1. 9X-Paul Nienhiser[5]; 2. 7A-Will Armitage[1]; 3. 51B-Joe B. Miller [2]; 4. 77U-Chris Urish[4]; 5. 6-Mario Clouser[3]; 6. 47-Korey Weyant[6] 7. 5D-Zach Daum[12]; 8. 29-Brayton Lynch[11]; 9. 28-Luke Verardi[9]; 10. 44-Cory Bruns[10]; 11. B8-John Barnard[15]; 12. 1JR-Steven Russell[17]; 13. 3B-Shelby Bosie[20]; 14. 83-Aaron Andruskevitch[14]; 15. 10S-Jeremy Standridge[13]; 16. 70-Eric Shelton[16]; 17. 22K-Kelly Harter[22]; 18. 31-Joey Moughan[19]; 19. 5H-Colton Fisher[7]; 20. 97-Scotty Milan[8]; 21. 01-Justin Standridge[18]; DNS-Korbin Keith
