WHEATLAND, Mo. — Rylan Gray drove to victory in the POWRi WAR Sprints portion of the Hockett-McMillin Memorial Thursday night at Lucas Oil Speedway.
The Hockett-McMillin Memorial pays tribute to the legacy of Jesse Hockett, from Warsaw, Mo., who was a national star in both the winged and non-wing sprint divisions when he lost his life in a shop accident in 2010. His cousin and crew chief, Daniel McMillin, was killed in an automobile accident in 2006.
An excited Gray of Greenfield, Ind., scored his first POWRi WAR Sprint victory in the wingless side of the action, leading all 25 laps to pick up $2,000 and valuable points toward Saturday night’s feature lineup.
“I’ve got to thank everyone who works on this thing,” Gray said. “That’s the hardest I’ve ever had to work for one in my life. I’m worn out. Man, that track was awesome.”
The pole-starting Gray, 20, set the early pace with Riley Kreisel moving to second on lap four, trailing Gray by one second. Green’s lead was down to a car length by lap eight with Ricky Lewis close behind in third.
Lewis grabbed second away from Kreisel on lap 10 and trailed the leader by .624 seconds when caution flew on lap 12r. Lewis continued to harass Gray after the restart, but was not able to muster up the pass.
Gray had opened a one-second lead when Kreisel’s car slowed on the backstretch to bring out a lap-21 caution. Wagner grabbed second on the restart and applied pressure, but Gray was able to hang on for the victory.
Mario Clouser was third with Justin Zimmerman fourth and Wyatt Burks fifth.
“We struggled at the beginning of the year a lot and just worked on our program really hard,” Gray said. “We’re gonna try to come out here and sweep all three nights. I don’t know if anyone has done that, but if we can it would be really cool. We have one night down.”
The finish:
Feature – 1. 1-Rylan Gray[1]; 2. 77-Jack Wagner[7]; 3. 6-Mario Clouser[11]; 4. 1Z-Justin Zimmerman[6]; 5. 11W-Wyatt Burks[3]; 6. 11X-Tom Curran[9]; 7. 44-Wesley Smith[18]; 8. 34-RJ Miller[10]; 9. 13-Chase Howard[14]; 10. 97-Cam Schafer[8]; 11. 73-Samuel Wagner[20]; 12. 41-Ricky Lewis[4]; 13. 11-James Lyerla[21]; 14. 6K-Jake Kouba[17]; 15. 33-Bryson Smith[13]; 16. 27-Justin Johnson[19]; 17. 33X-Justin Patocka[22]; 18. 76-Edison Aldrich[15]; 19. 91-Riley Kreisel[2]; 20. 2-Luke Howard[12]; 21. 98P-Ryan Padgett[16]; 22. 21K-Kobe Simpson[5]
