WHEATLAND, Mo. — Tanner Thorson was rewarded for a daring pass for the lead on lap 13 and the Broken Arrow, Okla., driver went on to win the Rod End Supply “Road to the Hockett” Round 3 in POWRi 410 Sprints on Saturday night at Lucas Oil Speedway.
Thorson, an Interstate Batteries High Limit Sprint series regular, took command with a slider heading into turn two and never looked back. He did have to withstand some late-race drama that forced a green-white-checkered restart for the win.
Thorson’s final margin was .956 seconds over Joe B. Miller with Joel Myers Jr. third.
Thorson said it was nice to make the trip to Lucas Oil Speedway, during a brief High Limit break, to get some testing prior to the Hockett-McMillin in September.
“Hats off to to this team. We have the whole JST crew here tonight,” Thorson said. “It was a fun little trip. Hats off to everybody on this car.”
Xavier Doney started on the pole and it didn’t take him long to build a sizable lead, 1.71 seconds in front of Thorson four laps in. That’s when fourth-running Landon Crawley flipped his car multiple times in turn two to bring out a caution.
Roger Crockett moved into second after the restart as Doney’s lead was soon back to nearly two seconds as Crockett fell behind Thorson. As the leaders entered lapped traffic, Thorson was cutting into the margin when caution No. 2 flew as third-running Crockett spun when hit by a non-contending car.
Thorson used a slider to take the lead on the restart coming off turn two. By just two laps later, caution No. 3 appeared when Doney got into the turn two marbles and spun, barely keeping it from going rolling.
That left Thorson leading Howard Moore and Joe B. Miller for the restart with 10 laps remaining.
Thorson sailed to a 2.3-second lead over the next five laps, turning it into a runaway. He was less than one lap to the checkers when Gage Montgomery, running sixth, flipped his car to bring out the led in turn two.
Thorson held on to post the $5,000 first prize.
Miles Paulus was fourth with Howard Moore fifth.
Other winners during Round 3 were Jack Wagner (POWRi WAR Sprints) and Jake Greenwood (305 IMCA RaceSaver Sprints).
The finish:
Feature: 1. 32S-Tanner Thorson[3]; 2. 51B-Joe B Miller[7]; 3. 5P-Joel Myers Jr[6]; 4. 98P-Miles Paulus[8]; 5. 40-Howard Moore[5]; 6. 21D-Kyle Bellm[18]; 7. 8N-Dylan Bloomfield[9]; 8. 3-Ayrton Gennetten[20]; 9. B8-John Barnard[21]; 10. 1JR-Steven Russell[12]; 11. 74-Xavier Doney[1]; 12. 7-Paul Solomon[16]; 13. 5-Ryder McCutcheon[10]; 14. 9S-Kyle Clark[14]; 15. 10G-Steven Shebester[22]; 16. 57-Billy Butler[15]; 17. 97-Scotty Milan[11]; 18. 74N-Natalie Doney[23]; 19. 15-Jack Potter[17]; 20. 79-Gage Montgomery[19]; 21. 11-Roger Crockett[4]; 22. 3H-Hilton Rowett[13]; 23. 12X-Landon Crawley[2]
