DU QUOIN, Ill. — Karter Sarff would strike for the lead with perfect timing while earning the feature victory indoors at the Southern Illinois Center.
Sarff’s seventh career victory in the series came in the Jr. Knepper 40-lap feature with the POWRi National Midget League.
Starting the feature field would witness high-point qualifier Christopher Bell and Corbin Rueschenberg lead the field to the green flag with Bell gaining the initial advantage on the opening lap as Rueschenberg, Thomas Meseraull, Brent Crews and Trey Marcham all circled inside the early contending top five.
Leading smoothly for most of the feature event, Bell would be in fine form in his return to dirt from a two-year hiatus by showing the point of the field for 28 laps as Sarff, Crews, Marcham and Shane Cottle followed.
Sliding into the lead using a daring turn one-two maneuver, Sarff attackeed for the front of the field to grab the top spot on lap 29 as Bell would maintain a solid runner-up battle with Crews as Marcham, Rylan Gray and Cottle all dueled for a top five run.
Sarff led the remaining 11 laps and capture his first feature victory of 2024 with one-time leader Bell taking the runner-up spot as Crews finished in the final podium placement.
“What an unbelievable night, I feel like this might be a dream and I am waiting to wake up,” said Sarff in the Southern Illinois Center winner’s circle. “Starting sixth I thought our work was cut out for us, this is really cool to be able to finally pull off this win before heading to Tulsa.”
Marcham and Gray completed the top five.
The finish:
Feature (40 Laps): 1. 21K-Karter Sarff[6]; 2. 71W-Christopher Bell[1]; 3. 71M-Brent Crews[4]; 4. 32-Trey Marcham[5]; 5. 41-Rylan Gray[7]; 6. 7M-Shane Cottle[15]; 7. 00DP-Broc Elliott[10]; 8. 11-Stephen Schnapf[11]; 9. 95-Chris Andrews[19]; 10. 71H-Mason Hannagan[8]; 11. 64-Andy Pake[16]; 12. 4-Dustin Smith[23]; 13. 16TH-Kevin Newton[18]; 14. 43-Gunnar Setser[13]; 15. 7P-Jason McDougal[20]; 16. 23DD-Devon Dobie[9]; 17. 40-Chase McDermand[17]; 18. 7X-Thomas Meseraull[3]; 19. 63-Frankie Guerrini[21]; 20. 26-Corbin Rueschenberg[2]; 21. 36-Chris Baue[12]; 22. 53-Sean Robbins[24]; 23. 57R-Daniel Robinson[14]; 24. 92-Jake Neuman[22].
