VINTON, Iowa — Paul Nienhiser made it four feature wins out of five with the Sprint Invaders Sunday night at the Benton County Speedway.
The Chapin, Illinois, driver swept his heat, the Shake-up Dash and the feature, earning $2,000 for his win aboard Scott Bonar’s No. 50 car. It was his fifth win of the year with the Sprint Invaders and the 12th in his career with the series.
The 25-lap feature had a shaky start on the quarter-mile when front row starter, Tyler Lee, tangled with Tasker Phillips and got upside down.
Colton Fisher was also involved when he spun to avoid the two, and restarted at the rear. Fisher had borrowed a motor from Hetrick Motorsports after losing his in action Saturday in West Liberty.
Chris Martin led early in the main event, with Nienhiser, Cody Wehrle, Luker Verardi and point leader, Ryan Bunton, in tow. While Martin stayed true to the tacky low side, Nienhiser searched around the first few laps. On lap four, a pass through the middle of turn two saw him shoot by Martin and into the lead.
Nienhiser was into lapped traffic by the sixth lap and was increasing his advantage to a straightaway ahead of Martin and Wehrle. Bret Tripplett had worked his way up to fourth by the halfway point, with Bunton fifth, and Fisher from the tail back to sixth.
With 10 laps to go, Verardi lost his steering headed down the backstretch. He was able to avoid disaster by getting over the top of turn three and getting stopped.
Nienhiser led the field back to green, ahead of Martin, Wehrle, Tripplett and Fisher. Fisher shot by Tripplett for fourth, and then worked around Wehrle for third with seven to go.
Nienhiser maintained his lead, while Martin held off Fisher at the finish. Wehrle and hard-charger Sawyer Phillips completed the top five.
“I say it all the time, but the No. 50 car is just a dream to drive,” said Nienhiser. “I thank Scott for the opportunity to drive it. Chris got the jump on me there. I probably would have done what he did, and got down on the bottom. I probably wasn’t going to pass him following him so…we had our car set up to move around a little bit. I was able to jump up top. I probably surprised him a little bit with the bottom tacky. I was up there and was able to get by once it cleaned off a little. It was a fun race. I’m glad to knock one off here. I haven’t really been good here in the past.”
“I thought I had the car snugged up enough to run the marbles through the slick,” said Martin. “I still need to go back to work and keep on learning and making gains. We have some good notes. My hat’s off to Paul and Scott. Overall, it was a really good, solid weekend. There’s nothing to hang our head about. We just need to clean up a few things, and we’ll be back up front.”
The finish:
Feature (25 laps): 1. 50, Paul Nienhiser, Chapin, IL (3) 2. 44, Chris Martin, Ankeny, IA (1) 3. 11, Colton Fisher, Mediapolis, IA (6) 4. 40, Cody Wehrle, Burlington, IA (5) 5. 3P, Sawyer Phillps, Pleasantville, IA (14) 6. 99, Bret Tripplett, Lincoln, IL (9) 7. 6R, Ryan Bunton, Lincoln, IL (7) 8. 14, Aidan Zoutte, Knoxville, IA (13) 9. 31, McCain Richards, Burlington, IA (12) 10. 17, Steve Pumphrey, Springtown, TX (15) 11. 32, Riley Valentine, Terril, IA (16) 12. 28, Luke Verardi, Taylorville, IL (8) 13. 21, Devin Wignall, Altoona, IA (11) 14. 4x, Chase Richards, Burlington, IA (10) 15. 7, Tyler Lee, Cedar Rapids, IA (2) 16. 1E, Tasker Phillips, Pleasantville, IA