WHEATLAND, Mo. — Chase Randall drove to the POWRi WAR Sprint victory on his 18th birthday during Friday’s action at the 12th annual Jesse Hockett-Daniel McMillin Memorial at Lucas Oil Speedway.
Chase Randall of Waco, Texas, led the first four laps and the final four to capture the POWRi WAR Sprint feature win, holding off defending Hockett-McMillin champ Wesley Smith of Nixa over the final laps.
Randall made the winning pass on lap 22 of the 25-lapper, going past Landon Simon who had led 17 circuits before settling for third place.
“This is a great win and a good win for our team,” said Randall, who celebrated his 18th birthday with the $2,000 win. “We came down to this non-winged race to have some fun and get some experience. It’s turned out to be a good weekend. We’re learning a lot.
“What better way to celebrate your birthday than to get a win.”
Randall, whose primary focus has been winged sprints, took the early lead from his outside row one starting position and set the pace through four laps before Simon grabbed the lead coming out of turn four to complete lap five.
Simon quickly opened up a three-second lead over Randall by lap 12 with Zach Daum in third and pole-starting Smith in fourth.
As the action remained caution-free, Simon stretched his command to 3.69 seconds by the time he hit lapped traffic on lap 16. That’s when the race’s first caution flew, for a three-car mishap in turn one, wiping out the leader’s cushion.
Randall and Smith started right behind Simon as green-flag action resumed. Simon continued to lead, but it was a dogfight and Randall regained the top spot with a lap-22 pass on the outside coming down the front straightaway.
“I got really lucky there was a restart there. I knew my one shot would be on the restart,” Randall said.
Randall hung on to beat Smith by .173 seconds with Simon third and Jack Wagner coming home in fourth.
“We were just a little too tight early and I lost a lot of spots,” said Smith. “Things didn’t go our way the first 15 laps, but after the caution, I don’t know what happened. The bottom kind of went away and me and Chase found the top. We were fast at the end, but Chase drove a smart race.”
The finish:
Feature (25 laps): 1. 9-Chase Randall[2]; 2. 44-Wesley Smith[1]; 3. 24-Landon Simon[4]; 4. 77-Jack Wagner[5]; 5. 41L-Ricky Lewis[7]; 6. #1-Justin Zimmerman[21]; 7. 15B-Quinton Benson[8]; 8. 15-Matt Sherrell[15]; 9. 91-Riley Kreisel[17]; 10. 20-Shon Deskins[6]; 11. 16-Anthony Nicholson[12]; 12. 73V-Blake Vermillion[13]; 13. 1JR-Steven Russell[20]; 14. 26-Zach Clark[11]; 15. 21-Michelle Parson[19]; 16. 21X-Caleb Stelzig[9]; 17. 22M-Zach Daum[3]; 18. 7R-JD Black[22]; 19. 41-Brad Wyatt[14]; 20. 00-Broc Elliott[18]; 21. (DNF) 31M-Mason Smith[16]; 22. (DNS) 89-Todd McVay